Re –Parents at the mercy of private schools

The government should have the political will to address its social responsibility by providing the basic, quality and accessible education for all as it is obtainable in other countries around the world. In some European countries, the government bear the responsibility of  pre-primary  for a certain number of hours in a week e.g. United Kingdom […]

The government should have the political will to address its social responsibility by providing the basic, quality and accessible education for all as it is obtainable in other countries around the world. In some European countries, the government bear the responsibility of  pre-primary  for a certain number of hours in a week e.g. United Kingdom and is a  MUST for parents to send their wards to school else the law will prosecute them.
 With our teaming population, unless the political will is there to tackle this problem, we are going to be breeding an uneducated society that will remain dependent and we will continue to seek for aid from the developed countries. This will make us slaves that cannot even determine when to free ourselves while other parts of the world are advancing in all ramification.
It is really very sad to see ‘mates’ of Nigeria e.g Malaysia, Venezuela, Brazil, India and Ghana  pulling weight in terms of infrastructure, yet Nigeria retrogresses , especially with the level of corruption at all levels that has manifested in education even at the least level Nursery school.
Suleiman  Muhammad

The two cases of children mentioned in your column are exceptional.
 In the business circle you can as well give an example of Aliko Dangote, who did’nt go to a formal business school, but is now the richest man in Africa. Nobody is contesting the need to regulate any business activity as long as it touches members of the public, but why are regulators always engaged in damage control? Were they sleeping when the entrepreneurs were busy setting up their outfits? Public servants are actually not doing their job!
Aminu Dangana

You have said it all. What pains me most is that these 2-3 yrs old children need enough time to play and interact with their local environment to have street wisdom that would aid them in future and help them to assimilate more complex teaching (school work) as they advance in life.
Anyway the  quest to exploit parents is at the base of all these long years in pre-primary classes & extra lessons.
I agree with you that these kids don’t do better than their mates in the future except that they get spoilt and get  good grades from what would later be helped (special centres) by their teachers in public exams.
Finally parents must try and spend time to teach their kids including morals so that the debasement bedevilling our society would be reduced.
Growing up in the ancient city of Kano in the  early 80s  extra lessons were not compulsory and we all had good grades at the  end of the day.
Daniel Isiocha.

Really! The types of private schools we are seeing around us are not more than centres of extortion and exploitations. The  sad thing is that some  of the schools are  operating in government places.
In the case of my home town, they build zinc classes, so during rainy season when rain starts they don’t have option than to send the children home. It is high time  the  government takes drastic action in regulating the activities of private schools.
Parents too should come together and challenge what they feel is not right, after all they pay exorbitant fees.
Sanusi  Damaturu

What is happening is because of the failure of the government to provide quality education in public schools, if the public schools were good, people wouldn’t have patronised the private schools.
But then the government officials send their children to private schools that is why they don’t care about the condition of public schools.
Some private schools even ask the children in nursery class to bring toilet paper and soaps, but can’t the schools provide these things from the school fees they get?
We need a government that would revamp the public schools and also monitor the activities of private schools.
Hafsa Umar