‘Many Upcoming Private Schools See Education As Business Concern’

Mr Ike Ofuokwu, a legal practitioner and Chartered Administrator, is the C

hairman, Advisory Board of Chrisland Schools. In this interview with KAYODE OLANREWAJU, he speaks about performance of the group of schools, impact of private schools in the nation’s education system, funding challenge in education, parents’ attitude to their wards’ upbringing, among other issues

How has your board been able to improve the image of Chrisland Schools?

First and foremost, I think there cannot be a one-size fits all subjective definition of the Chrisland School image, if you look at our overall performance within the academic and child development sphere.

We have produced tons of corporate high flyers and globally respected individuals. Till date, our students are clearing global examinations and setting the standards of excellence.

This explains why our patronage soars. Chrisland is still the school to beat. However, when one considers the fact that this school has been in existence for close to 50 years, it is highly unlikely that we won’t have challenging moments.

Again, I like us to view this from the context of the incidence and not employ it as the matrix for our overall evaluation. When one considers recent happenings like some past unforeseen incidents, not a single teacher would wish or pray such development arises to a child in his or her care.

Collectively and personally, we pray every day that the parents are comforted. Even as we remain very sensitive to unforeseen occurrences that challenge our joy, we hold on to this policy that respects parents, the public, and stakeholders’ sensibilities on issues affecting the schools.

Therefore, we always seek not to enable the raising of dust and stir controversy. We want to continue to be flexible and guided in measured steps such that even when lives are involved, we comport ourselves in a way that makes clear that we are genuinely bruised and are sympathetic.

This does not discount the fact that sometimes, owing to the colossal height our brand has attained, we once a while become a victim of unbridled competition, where with happenstance beyond our control, people run to the social media for mischief purposes. We see through this clearly.

Also, parents must recognise that they are partners in progress, and irrespective of where children are schooling, we must resist the urge to pile the responsibility for raising children on the school. There will always be issues you do not need to drag the school into.

The schools cannot teach our children how to sleep and wake up, or how to brush teeth and do everything else because parents have abdicated responsibility. Luckily for us, we have a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) that knows we are doing everything possible for the children.

That is why you see them rising up to defend us when anything happens; because they do know that we do all we can from management and especially from the Advisory Board to keep the Chrisland institution accountable.

Against this backdrop, what specifically is your role as the Chairman, Advisory Board of Chrisland Schools?

Well, my role as the Advisory Board Chairman of Chrisland Schools is to coordinate members of the board. We have a team of eminent Nigerians who are on the board.

Our duty is to formulate policies and strategic planning for the present and future running of the group of schools, as well as to create a pathway for the management to do so.

Looking at private schools activities, do they have policies to make the needed and expected impact in the country?

Of course, if the truth must be told, many of the private schools that are coming or springing up today see education from the business point of view and perspective. But, in all modesty, Chrisland Schools did not start as business, but as a passion to positively impact the society.

However, today, you will see a man who has the money and who sees owning a school as a lucrative business would go and open one for his children or wife. And as a result of this, many private schools do not have the standard or quality. To be truthful, if you want to know the position that education is today in the country, you will agree with me that it is in a precarious and dicey situation.

Fundamentally, let me say here that many of today’s parents still need parenting. You will observe that these parents hand over everything about their children and wards to the school and teacher. Thus, private entrepreneurs have now taken this as a business advantage in establishing and running their schools. You will see many schools that do not know about safeguarding, child protection policy, and quality assurance, among others.

All they do is just to put up nice buildings and tell you they have this and that. But, luckily for them, they are doing very well. Why? This is because there is a great gap created for them to thrive on the part of the regulators, and the government. In fact, you will also realise that the regulators also need regulation.

We need a proper education policy from primary to university level

Somebody is regulating you and in their own public schools they don’t have one quarter of the facilities most private schools have. Even when some of these private schools are not doing well, it seems they are doing well and every parent now wants to take their children there.

Many of us attended public schools when they were in good shape. The dilemma today is that apart from few private schools which have the passion for education, child moulding and upbringing, as well as in training children for tomorrow, and not today, many private schools that are springing up in the name of education, are in actual sense of it, are really business concerns. Of course, at Chrisland Schools, we stand for excellence and are committed to bringing up a total and all-round child.

Why are private schools always in the news for the wrong reasons?

I think that is a wrong assumption. If private schools were not available today, what do you think would have become of education in Nigeria. We should cut us some slack for filling the gaps.

Per incidences, it is not peculiar to private schools, as we talk now, unpleasant incidents may be taking place in a public school, but you don’t hear about that. The private schools deal with elitist parents. Those who have the wherewithal to fight you.

For instance, the other day, a lady was raped and killed in a BRT bus, was the BRT system shut down or did anybody protest? A lot of things happen in public schools as well, but who has shut them down? Of course, parents send their children to private schools because they think they are safer and secure there.

One of the consequences of growth is occasional drawbacks. Every road to success is dotted with such challenges because that is where you pick your learning curve from. But again, if you focus on them, rather than convert them to learning advantage, your growth will be negatively impacted.

How do you think the government could upgrade the standard of public schools?

One of the characteristics or traits of a developed society is how they run their education system. Education is one sector you don’t politicise.

It is not out of place for the government to seek those who have invested in education and are running their institutions well, and ask them for guidance on how they are doing it.

Fundamentally, why public schools are suffering today is, if we want to call a spade a spade, is because education is not cheap. The government is running education with zero financial policy.

If we want to be honest with ourselves, look at the university level, you will realise that what happened to public primary and secondary schools, is now happening to public universities. You would also see that systematically, public tertiary institutions are being suffocated daily, while the private ones are rising up on a daily basis.

Why this, you may ask. The truth is that if you call me now to come and run the Federal Ministry of Education, the first thing I would do is to call a meeting of all stakeholders, the staff unions, the parents, students and others together, and we need to agree that quality education does not come cheap.

There must be a price tag to quality education. It is through that we fund research, provide facilities and others. Then, the only question would be, how do we take care of the indigent students? And, this is simple. There must be a properly constituted Scholarship Board and welfare schemes for the poor to enjoy the benefits of education.

It is not to set up a Scholarship Board or a Student Loan Scheme where you find out that it is only the children of bank directors, ministers or top politicians that are benefiting from the schemes or scholarships. The state must pay for the poor and the poor in return work for the state.

But the rich must pay for education. The government must extricate education from politics. It is not a comedy, it is a serious business. This is because it is what we impart on the young ones that will show what the future of our society will be like.

The government seems to be in a dilemma regarding increasing fees in public schools, what is the way out?

Well, it takes political will to do so. You must be willing. Today, the government has removed fuel subsidy, but are we not living? Whether we like it or not, the rich must pay for the education of the poor. The earlier the government understands this, the better. Almost all our medical personnel have left the country.

It is cheap to train a medical doctor, nurse or pharmacist here in Nigeria, but they go to the United Kingdom, Canada or the United States, among others, after their training to make so much money. Meanwhile, their counterparts from those countries are still paying their student loans in the next 10 to 20 years.

You know why the government is finding it difficult to take the necessary steps, when they set up a Scholarship Board for instance, it is subjected to the whims and caprices of politicians. So, the poor will not enjoy it. The moment the poor enjoy it, they will support it.

What legacy do you want to leave as the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Chrisland Schools?

We are doing our best to ensure that the corporate governance policy is in place. When we institutionalise that, things will fall in line.

Whether the chairman of the advisory board or members are there or not, you will find out that a transformative system is in place and everyone knows what to do. We want to make Chrisland Schools, apart from being the largest in Africa, a foremost private group of schools in the continent.

How does Chrisland evaluate your teachers and curriculum?

Our evaluation is in the public domain. It is seen in the quality of our products. Two years ago, we had the best result in A’Level in English Language in the world.

We had the best result in Mathematics. If not for our curriculum and the standard we have set in education, very few schools will get the needless bashing like we did and come out unscathed. We get positive recommendations from parents daily. Our quality assurance is high and some private schools come to us for quality assurance.

In the last WASSCE, we had 47 or 48 students with eleven A1s including English Language and Mathematics, and if not for English Language, in which there was an issue with it, we could have had up to 100 students in that category. Let me also tell you that some of our students focus more on Cambridge A Level examinations.

Two years ago, we had the best results in Cambridge. For public schools, there are brilliant minds, but the environment is not conducive. In some of these schools, parents assist children in getting good results, we don’t condone that in Chrisland.

How do you explain a situation where somebody will get good grades in WASSCE, but will get to the university and won’t be able to defend that? We need a proper education policy from primary to university level. There must be a standard. If we don’t have a standard to follow, then the future of the country is in jeopardy. It is the younger generation that will build this country and they are leaving for other countries.

Even if we are given the best President, the generations that will build the country will have Japa. We should make education attractive and not a punishment. We must make our schools conducive for learning. I have been to some private universities, their lecture rooms, hostels are conducive.

They are not overcrowded. How will students not come out with good grades in such a school and environment where lecture rooms and hostels are air conditioned? But what about our public ones? They are overcrowded. The way out is that we must let the rich pay for the poor, and the poor will serve the state.