Apart from expressing worries over rising school fees and the increasing costs of textbooks, parents are advocating textbook reuse in schools. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 18.5 million children are currently out of school, and education stakeholders warn that this number could grow if access to affordable, quality education continues to be compromised by escalating expenses. LADESOPE LADELOKUN writes:
Being a woman of little education is one regret Balkis Olayiwola would love to correct if only she could reverse the hands of time. But living with her sad reality has only cemented her resolve to give her eye and teeth for her children’s education. Despite the wide gulf between the pepper seller’s desire and her income, she remains undaunted, energized by the belief that she would one day, reap bountifully her investments when her bones get frail to work, particularly when she approaches the departure lounge of her life. Meanwhile, in spite of the options of public secondary schools around her, opting for Highgrade College, a private school near her Arogun residence of Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, aligns with her education vision for her daughter , Amina. But, having to buy all the textbooks Amina’s immediate elder sister used before she left secondary school this year is a source of worry for her. For two weeks, she struggled without luck to get N10,000 to buy three books that could have been passed on to Amina by her sister. “We will eat. We will buy books, and pay school fees. For two weeks, we have not been able to buy the books my daughter needs. May God not bring pain upon us. Look at this my daughter; she cannot use the textbooks her sister used. They have just resumed. She has many books to buy. The first set of books she will buy will cost N10,000. They are just three. See the books there. Her elder sister used them but they are now useless because she was meant to write in them. It wasn’t the case when we were growing up. The books will now be sold to akara(bean cake), roasted corn sellers because they can’t continue to be here. “I want my children to turn out well in life. If I don’t do what I need to do now, my children will curse me tomorrow. I can’t tell her to sit here with me to sell pepper. If they turn out well, they will take care of me,” she told Sunday Telegraph.
More out-of-school children?
With a number of Nigerians grappling with what is deemed the attendant effects of fuel subsidy removal, schools, some parents lament, what they call avoidable cost of textbooks amid ballooning school fees. According to the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), 18.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria. But stakeholders in the education sector argue that the figure could rise if access to affordable and top quality education is stifled by cut-throat costs. Ibrahim Yau Nabayi, the Acting Secretary General National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria ( NAPTAN),expressed fears that the government’s efforts to reduce children roaming the streets could be frustrated. “We are going to meet in a few weeks to come at the National Executive Committee level of the association. We will look at this issue because it is generating hue and cry. We will come up with a solution and recommend the government to checkmate it, so that this action should not negate government action, efforts at providing sound and affordable education. Government is out there to mop up the children roaming the streets.”
Conspiracy between publishers, school owners – Teacher
Bemoaning what he called excessive exploitation by private school owners, a parent and teacher, Olu-Aina Ayowolemi , alleged that publishers and school owners conspire to milk parents dry. “It’s a known fact that the there’s a conspiracy between publishers and school owners because you won’t be able to see the said textbooks listed in their book list anywhere. It’s actually a way of reducing privacy but exploitation has been added to it. Publishers exploiting school, school exploiting parents for their needs, leaving the children at the receiving end if they can’t get the textbook as and when due, not like when the text books can be gotten in the bookshop.” “Majority of us grew sharing text books with our elderly ones, which in turn fostered continuity and helped the curriculum to be easily covered, be it home or in school. What you don’t understand, your elders would teach you since they once used the book .This new method of making textbook useless after one use is actually not helping. It is not a step in the right direction because the school is more like profit-based now than learning-based. That’s why a lot of parents have taken their kids away from private to public schools to help ease the tension and stress on them.” Another teacher at Avis Academy in the Arigbawonwo, Ofada area of Ogun State ,who did not want his name in print, said :”At Avis, textbooks are sold by the school. You can’t buy outside the school. When you tell them that ‘The elder brother of my child has it, they will say you still have to buy it’. And they will not allow you to buy outside.”
Govt looks away
Francis Chigozie, a parent at Pearl Academy, Magboro, Ogun State, has knocked the government for allegedly failing to regulate the activities of private schools. According to him, private schools generate humongous income from the sale of textbooks through grand fleecing of parents and their wards. “It is totally unacceptable. These private schools that the government has refused to regulate are just looking for all means to siphon money from parents. From the purchase of textbooks, schools make a lot of money and it has been another source of income for the schools. “The teachers enable the students write inside the textbooks, so that it will no longer be useful for others. The textbooks have exercises. The students are asked to answer the questions in the textbooks. “They add the price of textbooks to school fees, extra-curricular activities, development fees, clubs, etc. So, most of the time, parents don’t even know the amount they are paying for textbooks. “I paid N70,000 for textbooks and 20,000 for exercise books for my son in JSS1, 50,000 each for my two daughters in primary school, making N170,000 for books alone. I wanted to discuss this with other parents but the school has not had a parents and teachers’ meeting for almost two years now,” he told Sunday Telegraph. He continued: “In fact, the level of education (primary and high school) in Nigeria has dropped significantly due to all these private schools. In most private schools, they teach students during external exams, such as WAEC, and promote students even if they are not doing well. It is all about the money. I cry for this country. Being a lecturer, I know students who can’t write simple correct English and even those who can’t solve simple algebra and they have As in SSCE maths and English. Nigeria is a joke and I believe the educational system has been totally destroyed.”
No reasonable publisher combines workbook with textbook – Publisher
Reacting to the practice of combining workbooks with textbooks by publishers, a book publisher, Mr Adewoyin S Y, who publishes Yoruba textbooks for use in secondary schools, described it as far from ideal and unreasonable. “I don’t think any reasonable publisher should try to combine a workbook with a textbook. It’s not ideal. I don’t think any reasonable publisher will do that. In my own place, we separate the workbook. Actually, in senior school, we don’t have a workbook. But in the junior class, the workbook is separated. “Textbooks should be separated from workbooks because if you are having your workbook in a textbook, students can easily open and copy from it. Only a few local publishers are doing that. The ones that have made a name can’t do that. There is a standard. You cannot do your work inside the textbook. “What happens in most cases, within a particular period of time, curriculum changes, the edition changes. And at the same time, the author might have certain ideas that were omitted in the initial edition and tried to incorporate it in the new edition.” he told Sunday Telegraph. He decried the practice of selling textbooks deemed useless, stating that it only mirrors the poverty level in Nigeria. Books, he added, should be kept for future references. “For example, like my own, I have a library. The books that my children used many years back, they are still there. Sometimes, when they come to my place, they show their children. It’s very important. It is just the poverty level of our people that is making them sell books. They should keep it for future references.” Speaking on the abandonment of the Federal Government curriculum, he said: “Those who school in Lagos, when they go to Ogun State, you see a different curriculum. Most of them are not following the Federal Government curriculum again. Osun has a separate curriculum. If a child is schooling in Lagos now, if they go to Ogun State, their books would be useless.” Addressing the argument that curriculum change necessitates frequent change of textbooks used, the publisher noted: “Like our own now, since 2012, we are still using the same curriculum. The curriculum takes a long time to change.” Aligning his thoughts with Adewoyin, a lecturer at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism and author, Dr Dele Omojuyigbe, dismissed the argument in some quarters that curriculum review is responsible for changing textbooks every year in some schools. Omojuyigbe said the minimum interval for the review of curriculum was four years. He explained that the economic reality in today’s Nigeria should be a pointer to how proprietors act.
Writing in textbooks not in national policy -NAPTAN
Commenting, Ibrahim Yau Nabayi ,Acting Secretary General National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria ( NAPTAN), decried the practice of combining workbook and textbooks, stating that it has no place in the national policy on education. “This issue of writing in textbooks is not in the national policy on education. I’ve not seen it in any page, in any document of the policy. We are going to make advocacies to the concerned authorities,” he told Sunday Telegraph. He added :”Anything that has to do with the well being of the child is our paramount concern because the common child on the street is key to our development. Our association is concerned about the wellbeing of every child. We don’t know how they invented this without the consultation of parents and other stakeholders. Not even that alone, school A will use a book by an author, the next session, they will change the author of the particular textbook they are using, and inside the book, you will see that the homework and whatever, they do their assignment in it. That renders the book useless. It cannot be recycled for the younger ones in the family. It is a worrisome issue. ” Nabayi revealed NAPTAN’s plan to begin an advocacy that would take it to the National Assembly to buck the trend. “In the Federal Ministry of Education, there is the quality assurance department that oversees these things and at state chapters of the Ministry of Education and SUBEB, there are these quality assurance departments. So, we want to aggregate this and start making advocacy. In fact, this will even take us to the National Assembly, so that a law will be enacted for this because we see it as more of a sabotage from the authors. They make a lot of money from publishing new books every day. When you look at textbooks A and B, you’d see that the content is the same thing. But the proprietors will change the author. They will use author A today,and the next session, they will use author B.
Textbooks used in schools not determined by principals, school owners – Proprietors
For the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) , Chief Yomi Otubela, it is uncharitable to allege that proprietors are involved in exploitation of parents through textbooks. According to him, textbooks used in schools pass through the regulatory body, and get approved before they are used in schools. “It is quite concerning at this period in time, with the current economic downturn in the country, one can relate with the pain among parents, who are battling with their finances. However, the textbooks used are not determined by school owners or school principals. The list of books are books that have passed through the regulatory body. That is, the Ministry of Education, who regulates their content, and approves the same for use. “Periodically, say every three years, the regulatory body reviews the list of books approved, sends the list out and compels schools to use among the list of books approved. So, if a regulator approves a book, and the school has adopted the same for use, how does anyone allege that schools are exploiting them? Besides, schools are not the publishers. They write books; they don’t approve the book to be used. Rather than raising allegations, we should look out of the box and see how we can curb the inflation in the market.” Reacting to the allegation that some parents are compelled to buy books from schools, he noted: “Any school that compels parents to buy books in the school must be approached to respond to that. What we do in our own school is that the books that are available in the school, as determined by the publisher, because of piracy, children, through their parents, source for these books within the school. For those that are available in the market, parents are free to buy books from wherever they want to get their books. So, there is nothing like compulsion that it must be through the school. “So, if any school is doing that, that school should be approached to explain why it is doing that. However, I want to add that I’m aware of the level of piracy affecting the brain work invested in writing books by publishers, and most times, you will see many of the current books now with the inscription,’Not to be sold’ in bookshops. I think you may need to interview these publishers to have proper information on the issue at hand.” Otubela, however, said that NAPPS only plays advisory and advocacy, noting that it has no power to sanction any member. “The work of regulating activities of private schools lies in the hands of the statutory body – the Ministry of Education, who are empowered by the laws of the land to ensure that private schools operate within the ambit of the law. What we do is advocacy. Nevertheless, if we see a situation where there is a direct report to our office about any activity that is inimical to children’s safety and good practice, we often invite the school to get detailed information,and when such school is found to be culpable, we advise such school to turn a new leaf and correct whatever error they must have caused the parent. Our own role is advisory and advocacy. The major outfit that has the power to do the job of sanctioning is the Ministry of Education.”
We’ll shut schools flouting rules – Education Commissioner
Speaking in an interview with Sunday Telegraph, the Ogun State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, said the state government would not hesitate to close down any private school flouting government rules and regulations. “Just a few days ago, I called all the private school owners. I called them to warn them against flouting government rules and regulations. I told them I would not hesitate to close any private school that flouts regulations. ” Arigbabu said while the Ministry of Education cannot regulate school fees charged by private schools, it condemns in strong terms any form of exploitation and other infractions. “Well, people have choices. They can take their children to certain schools for one reason or the other. You can go to a school you feel you are satisfied with their policy. “We don’t regulate their fees. If you go to school A and they are charging N200,000,you go to school B, they are charging N500,000, do we regulate that? If you go to a school and they are giving you service you are not satisfied with, you are free to move to any other school. “We condemn some of these infractions because we don’t even do them in our schools(public schools). We have approved list of books in the Ministry of Education. What happens is that when some parents have a problem with the proprietor, they say the ministry will intervene. The ministry they did not contact, when they went to that place. What I’m trying to say is, when we have this issue, let’s try to separate it. If it is a government policy, one can understand. When you get to any secondary school(public school), you won’t find a situation where the books read last year would not be the ones used this year.” Books, the commissioner said, are reviewed every five years, stating that private schools have been warned against contravening the law. “I’m telling you. We have a five-year cycle before books are reviewed,which means, if you have a child in primary one, that child will possibly use that book throughout his primary school. That book will remain in circulation for another five years. And even when we review,we don’t throw everything overboard. But we have given a general warning to private schools about doing things we don’t approve of. So, you will see that indirectly about that. Anything we are doing in public schools is what we want you to do in private schools.”
‘We have no case on our table’
Arigbabu said parents could play crucial roles in ending infractions in schools. Despite complaints of infractions by parents and other stakeholders, the commissioner said there was no case brought to the table of the ministry. “As a body, the Parent-Teacher Association of any school should be able to prevail on the school to tell them this is unacceptable. If they come as a group and they make a formal report to us, yes, we will intervene but right now, nobody has reported any school to us. The only thing is that we saw a video. If the PTA or concerned parents decide to approach the ministry, then we can take it up. But we can’t do what I’d call blindspot. We don’t have any case on our table. I saw a video. Of course, that video might not be about Ogun State. That person said she works in a radio station in Lagos State. Probably, that person was even referring to a school in Lagos State. I don’t know. I’m not sure.We can’t be looking for schools that are using which books or whatever. We don’t have any case on our table.” The commissioner challenged this reporter to name schools allegedly involved in exploitation of parents for appropriate action.