Privatisation: Unity Schools' teachers begin strike today

   9/10/2006

By Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu and Kofoworola Belo-Osagie

Academic activities will from today be paralysed in Federal Government's Unity Schools, This is Labour's reaction to the proposed privatisation of the colleges.

The Minister of Education Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili said the privatisation move is to free the schools from total collapse as "many of them (schools) lack basic infrastructure and have become sorry sight in the landscape of secondary education."

She also disclosed that 78 per cent of Federal Government's budgetary allocation to the ministry goes into the Unity Schools which have a total student population of 120,718.

Not only that, Dr Ezekwesili said: "Our greatest concern, however, is the fact that the ministry spends an inordinate amount of time and resources on these schools that constitute only 30 per cent of the secondary schools in the country. out of 6.4 million scondary school students, only 120,718 are in the 102 Unity Schools."

Labour said many teachers and non-teaching staff would lose their jobs in the process of privatisation.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Adams Oshiomhole described the planned privatisation as "perhaps the most retrogressive step ever taken in the history of education administration in Nigeria."

The NLC President believes that the attempt to privatise the schools was targeted at the poor and the middle-class.

"In the past, Unity Schools have enabled many gifted children of the poor to break out of the poverty cycle through quality and affordable public education.

The privatisation of the schools was an escapist, simplistic, anti-poor and reactionary measure in the face of the problem that required bold steps," he said.

Oshiomhole also warned the Minister to drop the idea of privatisation otherwise labour will mobilise Nigerians against the auctioning.

"We wish to warn the Minister and those invisible forces outside driving this policy that we will mobilise progressive and patriotic Nigerians, parents, teachers, the poor, middle-class and indeed all Nigerians, against the auctioning of these schools," he said.

The Minister, in response to Ohsiomhole's act burst had said the Unity Schools have already been privatised by poor management and the inefficiency of some people.

"We are proposing public/private partnership management to restore the efficiency that is lacking in the schools.

"Mounting propaganda against the proposal would not out of 27,200 staff of the Ministry of Education are employed in 102 Unity schools is a disservice to the country," she said

The Secretary-General of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) Comrade Solomon Onaghinan last week appealed to Nigerians to rise against the proposed privatisation.

"We are calling all well meaning Nigerians to rise up and stop their action. From Monday October 9 (today), there will be no more lectures in all the Unity Schools nationwide.

We are giving parents long notice in order for children until the matter is fully resolved.

"A week after (today), there will be no more services in the schools, there will be no service whatsoever. All the schools will be closed, so as to give everybody the opportunity to assess what is on ground. We have not seen any rationale behind what is being done by the minister. She can tell the parents what she means by wanting to privatise the schools."

One of the parents whose children are at the Federal Government College, Ijanikin and who simply introduced himself as Mr Akinola, told The Nation that " this government does not want the children of the poor to be educated. They want our children to serve their (the rich) own children in future."

"Anybody can come to Ijanikin and see the state of the FGC there. The Parents/Teachers Association (PTA) is doing its best in that school, so I don't know what the minister is talking about.

"All I know is they should think about God and stop oppressing the masses," he said .

Meanwhile, parents are set to withdraw their children from the schools because of the strike that begins today.

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Mr Solomon Olaghinon, told The Nation on phone that the strike would likely continue until the issue is resolved.

He faulted claims by the Federal Government that allocations given to the schools are misappropriated, adding that for the past 15 years funds have not been given to the colleges for development projects.

"All the things the government is saying they are wrong. For the past 15 years has the government given out money for contracts? They would allocate money but it would not get to the schools. Where do they want us to get money to develop the schools? Is it from our salaries? Let the government tell us which principal, director or minister carried away the money they allocated to unity schools," he said.

For the next one week, Mr Olaghinon says teachers would keep away from the classrooms. He also confirmed that the association would likely organise rallies along the line.

Dr Ezekwesili had in a parley with the media held in Lagos recently, debunked claims of the privatisation of unity colleges.

Rather, she explained that the Federal Government was only going to franchise the brand to capable private managers but would still monitor everything that goes on in the colleges.