Public officials and foreign schools The Sun News 24, 2013 The plan by certain members of the House of Representatives to revisit the bill which seeks to ban government officials from sending their children and wards to foreign educational institutions, is undoubtedly, a bold attempt to address the crass neglect of education in Nigeria. Mr. Abdulmumini Jibrin, Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, who disclosed this plan at a recent public lecture, said the bill would be targetted at halting the lukewarm attitude of government officials to public schools, “which has led to thedeteriorating state of education in Nigeria.” He added that the rot in theeducational sector goes beyond funding, but requires revolutionary bills to put it on a sound footing. Those who will be affected if this billis passed and signed into law are the offspring and wards of the president, vice-president, governors, deputy governors, ministers, National Assembly members, commissioners, permanent secretaries and directors in the federal and state civil services. If the bill becomes law, it will becomean offence for any of these public functionaries to send their children, relatives or wards abroad for primary,secondary and university education. Only postgraduate studies would be allowed for the affected persons, overseas. Jibrin assured that the bill, which could not pass beyond the second reading when it was introduced in the Senate sometime ago, would be re-introduced in the House of Reps and passed into law. Considering the huge amounts that public officers and other Nigerians commit to the pursuit of education inforeign countries on account of the decay in the nation’s education sector, it is easy to justify the proposed revisit of this bill. Strange as the proposed legislation may sound, it is an understandable response to the growing neglect of education by Nigerian public officials.This is more so now that it has become a passion for public functionaries to send their wards abroad for education. A recent authoritative report indicated that more than N60 billion is spent yearly by about 75,000 Nigerians studying in Ghana alone! If the computation is taken globally, the amount spent by Nigerians on foreign education for their wards will run into billions of dollars. This obsession has left the country’s educational sector in tatters because of lack of attention to basic needs of teaching and learning. This is not surprising as it may, indeed be foolhardy to expect optimal attentionto public education by officials who have no stake in the system, since their own children are in schools abroad. With the resultant underdevelopment of education, standards have inevitably crashed and those who cannot afford to send their children to Europe, America and the Asian countries resort to educational institutions in Ghana, Togo, Benin and other nearby African countries. Unless this passion of public officials for overseas education for their wards is properly managed, the country will continue to experience outflow of funds direly needed for the transformation of the education sector and other areas of national life. The argument has been made that if officials whose duty it is to ensure that our educational sector meets international standards are henceforth compelled to experience the rot at home, they would have a rethink and rise to the challenge of instituting an acceptable framework for reformation of the nation’s educational sector. This is the kernel of this proposed legislation. For us, however, the proposed revisitof this bill should be seen as a wake up call on the need to put our educational system and structures on a better footing. It is sad that no Nigerian university is listed among the top 1000 universities in the world in the latest Web-metric Ranking of World Universities released last month. Even in Africa, no Nigerian university is among the top 10. The synergy between sound education and development cannot beglossed over by any serious nation. Their interconnectedness is inseparable and determines how countries grow, both materially and in terms of human development. Any country that ignores its education is doomed to lag behind and remain at the doldrums in the comity of nations. The world, today, is knowledge-driven and Nigeria cannotafford to be an underdog in the intellectual race. While it cannot be denied that this proposed law will abridge the fundamental rights and freedom of the concerned persons guaranteed by Sections 37-41 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the argument has been made that it is defensible on account of Section 45 of the same constitution, which states that “nothing in sections 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41 of this Constitution shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society—(a) in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or publichealth; or (b) for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.” The importance of this bill lies more in the attention that it has once againdrawn to the neglect of public education by the relevant authorities,and the imperative of halting the trend in the best interest of the country.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 16:48:00 +0000
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