Lagos
State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), at the weekend canvassed
collaboration between Government and the Private sector to fashion out a
new curriculum that would relate to the needs of the society in order
to produce appropriate manpower for national development.
Governor Fashola, who spoke at the 104th
Kings College Founders’ Day Lecture organized by the Old Boys’
Association of the institution (KCOBA), pointed out that as a result of
lack of such curriculum, the nation is producing manpower where its
economy no longer needs them.
Speaking
on the theme: “Public Private Partnership as Strategy for Education”,
at the Kings College Assembly Hall, Tafawa Balewa Square in Central
Lagos, the Governor said “The nature of the Nigerian Economy has changed
over the last 50 years but the curriculum has remained almost the same
adding that in order to change this trend and stem the increasing army
of unemployed graduates, the review of such curriculum was not only
necessary but also expedient.
He called for the harmonization of the
school curriculum and calendar pointing out that the first sign of
malfunction in the Education system was the lack of harmony in content
of learning and times of vacation and resumption among schools.
“One
of the things that I believe Government must also do is that we cannot
afford to have discordant school curriculum in any part of Nigeria. The
first sign of malfunction is when one school is closing, another school
is opening. Indeed, if it is possible, without .centralization, there is
a sense in which you know that a nation is making progress when they
begin to speak the same language on the same issue through many
independent voices that operate like a well choreographed orchestra”,
the Governor said.
He cited the National Youths Service
Corps (NYSC) programme in which he noted sadly that because of lack of
harmony in the university system, the programme has been broken into
tiers in order to accommodate all the students graduating at different
periods of the year.
“The problem cascades right from the
bottom to top such that I don’t know how many tiers of NYSC that we
have. But there was only one NYSC when I left school. And instead of
addressing the problem, we have provided escapes, create tier 2, create
tier 3, create tier 4. But the real problem is that there is no
harmonized calendar for Education”, the Governor said.
Governor, Fashola also advocated the
adoption of endowments by Private Sector operators, especially in
tertiary institutions, as a viable intervention strategy in the
development of Education in the country pointing out that endowing funds
in the nation’s tertiary institutions would boost the quality of
education as it would enable them undertake research and training to
improve learning in the institutions.
The Governor urged more Private Sector
operators and privileged individuals to begin to endow funds in
universities as the quickest means for transforming the nation’s
education system.
He told the prominent individuals from
both public and private sectors that constitute the Old Boys of the
century old institution, “A lot of the members of the privileged class
must begin to think of endowing funds in the universities in much more
numbers than we have seen it happen now. They help research and advance
civilization”.
“The budget available and reserve funds
of institutions like John Hopkins, Harvard and others, sometimes
outstrip the budget of some states like Lagos when you convert them in
absolute terms. But they have not come only from government and
taxpayers. They have come from subventions, grants and so on that has
been put up by public spirited individuals, development-oriented and
far-sighted human beings like we have here. It is a place that I think
all of us should be looking,”, the Governor said.
Governor
Fashola also enjoined the Private Sector operators and privileged
individuals to invest in infrastructural facilities in tertiary
institutions as a means of improving the quality of the learning
environment in the institutions expressing dismay that “some of the
schools that we call universities don’t have the look and the feel of a
university”.
“Perhaps one area where I think the
impact of private capital would be defining and impactful would be in
the tertiary level in terms of quality. It will help undebatebly in
terms of infrastructure”, he said adding, however, that government must
retain its role in funding and regulation.
Such areas of investment, the Governor
said, include building hostels where students can pay for proper
accommodation, maintaining and cleaning up such hostels, building of
staff clubs and staff houses for university lecturers as well as
improving the teaching and learning environment in a way that it helps
to improve the sense of a university.
According to the Governor, “There is a
sense when you enter a university you see that the architecture changes.
The atmosphere is in every way both inspiring and aspiring. And that is
lacking in most of the schools that we call university today. I think
in those areas there will be significant opportunity for the private
capital to really give a direct shot in the arm”.
He, however, warned that while the
Private Sector is performing such role in the nation’s institutions,
government, as regulators of education, must be able to regulate in such
a way that while the operators make returns on their investments, there
is a balance that precludes profiteering.
“It
seems to me that while the Private Sector Operators continue to perform
this sense of Corporate Social Responsibility, all of us who are
passionate about Education must understand that Government, as regulator
of Education, cannot abdicate its responsibility to the Private
Sector”, the Governor said.
Noting
that the business of private capital is to look for returns, Governor
Fashola declared, “Government’s role must be to create a balance where
private capital can come and broaden the width of resources required to
provide support in Educational institutions but also to regulate in such
a way that while profit is being made, there is a balance that
precludes profiteering. It is a difficult balance to strike but it is a
balance that we must strike”.
On
what the State Government has done in the area of using the Public
Private Partnership (PPP) strategy to enhance the Education System in
the State, Governor Fashola said his administration has created
opportunities for the Private Sector and private individuals to
intervene in the system.
“In
terms of infusing a PPP in our schools, what we have done is to create a
regime that expands the opportunity for intervention in a structured
and regulated manner under the Lagos State Adopt-A-School programme. We
have developed that policy. We hold an annual general meeting every year
since 2008 and I have not failed to attend one meeting because it is
important to us”, he said.
According
to Governor Fashola, “Today there are 177 different bodies who have
signed up to that scheme and the numbers are growing. We give credit for
what we receive, we monitor its deployment and we come back to report
every year. So this has led to the infusion of people who until now were
circumscribed by the way in which they could assist in schools”.
“Some
have taken up laboratories, some have taken up whole schools, some have
taken up individual classrooms, some have simply said they want to
provide ICT facilities. And we have had a structured engagement with
them”, the Governor said adding that this has helped in no small measure
to improve the quality of infrastructure and by extension, the quality
of learning in the schools.
He
also said that in order to harmonize the school curriculum and calendar
and enhance the quality and content of learning in the State’s public
schools, his administration has taken the Policy initiative to unify the
calendar in all Lagos public and private schools before the end of this
Academic session adding, “There must be a day when all schools in Lagos
open and there must be a day when all schools in Lagos close”.
On
the curriculum, the Governor declared, “Every month, for example, I sit
down with the Permanent Secretaries leading the six Education Districts
in our State and we conduct a root-and-branch examination of all the
problems across the education system from primary to tertiary education
and this has helped to ramp up the quality of teaching and quality of
learning. Every year now, there is a planned programme of training for
our teachers. When the students are on vacation they are always in
training during the long vacations”.
The
Governor, who observed that the idea of Public Private Partnership in
the Education sector was not a novel idea, recalled that the partnership
had existed for over 50 years in the country citing Saint Gregory’s
College Obalende, Saint Finbar’s College, Akoka .and Vivian Fowler
Memorial College, Ikeja, among other private schools that began many
years ago in the State.
Governor
Fashola thanked the KCOBA for the courtesy of their invitation pointing
out that the entire membership should be proud that after 104 years,
the institution that moulded them for their life battles is still
standing even as he expressed regrets that many schools over the years
have simply disappeared.
Another
Guest Lecturer at the occasion, Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross Rivers
State, painted very depressing picture of the Nation’s Education System
citing as one of its biggest problems the poor state of tuition and
intake at the tertiary level.
He
declared, “The problems of the Nigerian Education Sector are further
exacerbated and crystallized at the tertiary level. Firstly, the
Nigerian University System is in a crisis of manpower. According to the
2012 All Africa.com report by Ladipo Adamolekun, the former Dean of the
Faculty of Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, only 43
percent of academics in Nigerian universities are PhD holders”.
Imoke
advocated the decentralization of the Education System in the country
with more responsibilities given to the states adding that in order for
the system to be adequately funded, the right environment must be
created for Private Sector participation while government must actively
pursue private management of public institutions.
Prominent
among those present at the occasion were onetime Federal Commissioner
for Works, Alhaji Femi Okunnu (SAN), Commissioner for Science and
Technology, Mr. Biyi Mabadeje, Chairman Board of Trustees of KCOBA, Dr.
Sonny Kuku, the Managing Director of LAGBUS, Mr. Tunde Disu, who are all
members of KCOBA and other top government functionaries. kindly drop a comment after reading pls
