Oyo’s proposed return of private schools

A pragmatic proposal to return privately-established schools to their original owners is generating commotion in Oyo State. In the forefront of the resistance to Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s policy are the organised labour, teachers and secondary school pupils. While labour disrupted a roundtable for stakeholders convened by the government, some pupils went on the rampage in Ibadan, the state capital, violently expressing their antagonism. But the plan is a sensible course of action. We urge Ajimobi to implement it in a well-defined structure.

According to the governor, the plan is necessitated by the state of the economy. It is also to atone for the forceful take-over of private schools by the Federal Military Government in the 1970s. Oyo State has 631 public secondary schools, out of which it plans to return 31 to their original owners with a “proven commitment to education advancement,” says Ajimobi. The private schools are just a fraction of the whole as there are still 600 public schools, a significant majority, under the management of the government. Ajimobi argues, “We’re not selling the schools. It’s a misconception. We only want to partner the people on the management of some of our schools, because it has become inevitable, judging by the poor state of our economy and the deteriorating condition of our schools.”

The other pertinent issue to be considered is that some states in the country have returned mission and private schools to their owners. In the first place, the schools were seized from their founders. It was a wrong-headed action that needs to be corrected. Apart from the proposed return ending decades of injustice, the policy has reduced the financial burden on state governments that have done so. Imo, Anambra, Lagos, Ogun, Delta and Plateau states have returned schools established by private entrepreneurs to them since the return of democracy in 1999.

Although there was a limited opposition, Lagos implemented the initiative in 2001. But the Anambra model, started by former governor, Peter Obi, is worth considering. Linking the forceful takeover of schools to the collapse of education in the state, Obi returned 1,040 primary schools to their owners in 2011. In a well-thought-out scheme, Obi, over a period of 15 months, reimbursed the owners of the schools to the tune of N6 billion. The Catholic Church, which owned the bulk of the schools, initially received N762 million for 453 schools; the Anglican Church got N498 million.

But it did not stop there. Seeing the impact, Obi’s successor, Willie Obiano, stuck to the policy. Last May, Obiano presented cheques totalling N367 million to mission schools in Anambra. This is a practical demonstration of the far-sighted policy to return mission schools and partner the new owners for the overall development of education in the state. It is no coincidence that Anambra and Imo states have been leading in enrolment and performance in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, West African Senior School Certificate Examinations and the Unity Colleges entrance examinations.

Delta State, which based its policy to return 40 mission schools on the need to decongest public schools, has equally seen improvements. While the returned schools are grossly underutilised because they were half-heartedly run by the government, secondary public schools had an average of 80 pupils per teacher. Contemporary economic trends are driven by knowledge, and if we want to grow economically, our governments must implement a broad range of policies to strengthen our education system. We implore other states to follow suit and return the schools to their owners who are willing to take them back.

To develop education, even advanced economies have always permitted private tuition to run side-by-side with public schools. In Britain for example, the Department of Education and the Independent Schools Council say as of 2012, 1,234 of the 24,372 schools there were private. The private schools are encouraged to award scholarships to pupils; this has led to a rise in enrolment. A study commissioned by the ISC in 2014 estimated that private schools contribute £11.7 billion to Britain’s gross value added, apart from generating employment and tax.

In implementing the policy, however, the Oyo State Government must consider the questions bothering the teachers, organised labour and the pupils, who feel they will be charged high fees in privately-owned schools. We identify with these fears. The return should be structured in such a way that all the pupils currently studying in the schools are not unduly burdened by the weight of any new fees. Those of them who want to transfer to public schools should be granted their wish, seamlessly. The same goes for the teachers, who have expressed the fear that they were employed by the government and would want their employment status to remain so. Ajimobi should implement a process that will enable these teachers to retain their services in the public service.

As for the rampaging pupils, who destroyed property during their protests, they have gone beyond their bounds. The government should not allow their indiscretion to go unpunished. Arson is a criminal act and carrying weapons is illegal. Secondary school pupils should not be associated with this. The law has to take its full course.