UBE: The controversy lingers on
By IME OLA
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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•Oby Ezekwesili PHOTO: Sun News Publishing |
Nine-year-old Tosin Akinfolajimi is the quintessential symbol of hope for Nigeria’s new basic education policy. Cool, calm and confident, she declares before journalists attending a workshop on the new policy: "I feel great because I am going to JSS, I am going to start learning new things that I was not taught in primary school."
The education events unfolding around Tosin are clear, but the girl is unperturbed. And unlike many adults who say they don’t understand where the new basic education policy is taking them, Tosin has cheering news: "Universal Basic Education is meant to provide free education to children and I believe that it will change a lot of things. It is a free education programme for children who don’t have parents, and children from poor homes."
She adds that she understands that the government will give the children free books and food so that they are not hindered by a lack of those essentials.
Tosin has just graduated from Community Nursery and Primary School, Asokoro, Abuja and is heading for the junior secondary school arm of her school called Community Secondary School. The junior school is starting this month when schools reopen as a result of the UBE policy.
In some quarters, the information in the air is that the Federal Government is trying to increase time spent in primary school from six to nine years. Many parents think this is a backward policy, and some have tried to prematurely put their children in secondary school before the policy takes effect, says Mr. Idowu Alonge, the headteacher of Solid Rock International School, Lugbe, Abuja.
"The question parents ask is: ‘How can a child be in primary school for nine years?’" Alonge says.
According to the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Prof. Gidado Tahir, what some people are saying about the programme is false. As he explains, the new policy is just to give a new thrust to an old one—free primary education for all children in Nigeria. That policy—Universal Primary Education—dates back to 1976. As an education policy, it achieved little in the sense of imparting literacy and numeracy to children.
The government, therefore, decided to improve the scheme by making the first three years of secondary education an integral part of early childhood education.
Christened Universal Basic Education, the scheme was launched in 2000, but the transition from primary to secondary school, which necessitated entrance examinations and movement from one environment to another, caused many pupils from poor homes to drop out. Professor Tahir explains that to remedy the situation, government decided to disarticulate junior secondary from the old secondary school system and abolish entrance examinations into public schools. There is another policy, which encourages the setting up of junior secondary schools side by side primary schools. This is expected to make the transition much easier.
In the next two to three weeks, schools will open for the 2006/2007 academic year. The first set of pupils for this new thrust of the UBE programme will be entering Junior Secondary School. However, while public schools are taking it in their stride, many private schools are battling with problems of understanding how to implement the programme. Their problems stem largely from unclear information and funding difficulties. Added to that is a seeming dearth of pupils in some schools that will come into existence.
Mr. Idowu Alonge believes the transition will not be as bad as many people fear. Even then, Alonge says there are many challenges.
The most daunting, he says, is the requirement that each school that will participate in providing basic education must have at least 1.5 hectares of land. This will be to accommodate the necessary infrastructure and facilities such as play ground and school farmland. Alonge argues that the huge cost of acquiring such amount of land in the FCT makes it an uphill task.
"Not all schools will be able to acquire such land," he declares.
At inception, there must be at least four arms of the entry class and the second—JSS 1 and 2. There must be an assembly hall, an administrative block for offices, one workshop and two laboratories. Other required facilities are a functional library, school clinic and sick bay, in addition to basic facilities like toilet, water and electricity supply, fire fighting equipment and a minimum of 12 teachers who must have at least the National Certificate of Education (NCE).
A little differently from Alonge, Mrs. Tunrayo Ayegbusi, secretary of Abuja chapter of National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, says the government has put a big task before them, and they are finding it difficult to cope. Ayegbusi addressed a group of education reporters attending a workshop organized by Internews Nigeria in collaboration with the ENHANSE Project. Even though she commends the Federal Government for the policy, she expresses fears that there are heady days ahead.
Private school owners are gradually adjusting to the demands of the new UBE policy although some are still confused about its implementation, Mrs. Ayegbusi explains. She lists some of the challenges as problem of curriculum, which is not yet finalised; the absence of infrastructure at the moment, and insufficiency of trained teachers. Although the minimum qualification that has been set for teaching at the basic education level is the National Certificate of Education (NCE), many teachers don’t yet have it. In many states across the federation, there is a growing army of unqualified and under-qualified teachers.
Speaking on the theme, Nigeria’s Teacher Education Programme: Background and Development, the acting Executive Secretary of National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), Alhaji Shehu Galadima, decried the dearth of professionally qualified teachers.
Galadima, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) of NCCE, Mr. Haruna Jackden, explained that the teacher holds the key to economic, social, political, scientific and technological development of the nation. He observed that some states have problems meeting the teaching qualification policy due to shortage of qualified teachers. He stressed the need for more NCE teachers to meet the challenges of the new programme. His words: "There is need for enhanced relevance in NCE teacher education curriculum to meet the needs of the Universal Basic Education programme, particularly training in handling large classes." He also called for the relaxation of admission and fees policies in the state-owned colleges of education to expand enrolment while urging states with large numbers of unqualified teachers to sponsor them on in-service training.
In her presentation at the workshop, Professor Uchenna Nzewi described the teacher as the key factor in learning. She noted that teacher’s education for productivity is one of the ways of making education achieve its desired goals in the society.
"The teacher must be prepared adequately for whatever he or she must be, and adequately for what he or she must know in order to be effective," she said.
According to Nzewi, a study on teacher’s education for the UBE found out that teachers who are supposed to implement the policy are not well-trained to know the problem that would need to be addressed given the fact that every child for the UBE programme would be helped to learn, to proceed to the next class. She says effective learning systems in colleges of education and teacher education institutes are required to enable teachers become effective and efficient.
Nevertheless, with the new policy, education is compulsory and children must be in school. The UBE law emphasizes that all Nigerian children of school age must be made to have access to nine years of basic education. The law intends to protect the rights of the child and to ensure that not even parents are able to deprive their children of basic education.
According to the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Professor Gidado Tahir, the UBE law has provisions to sanction parents and guardians who prevent their children and wards from having access to quality education. A first offender would be cautioned while a fine of N2,000 or one month’s imprisonment, or both would be meted out to a second offender.
Professor Tahir adds that a subsequent conviction would attract a fine of N50,000 or two months’ imprisonment, or both. Many parents may not be aware of this, says Mr. Alonge for the same reason of ignorance of the thrust of the policy.
On her part, Mrs. Ayegbusi says: "We have tried to educate the parents at PTA meetings, but a lot of them are still confused."
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