Private Secondary Schools: The Bedrock Of Fallen Standard Of Education In Nigeria

Until the government decides to come up with an effective monitoring team on private secondary school institutions in Nigeria, things will surely remain bad for that sector in the country. However, I doubt if this can be effectively achieved since the wives of senior political office holders and aides are the proprietresses of the private secondary schools in the country thus relegating the public owned schools to the background in what has become a shame for the country. Owing a private school has become one of the easiest money-spinning ventures for retried political office holders who charge unfeasible and unobtainable fees. Examination malpractice begins in private secondary schools and ends on the desk of proprietors/proprietresses who in bids to convince and attract parent-customers organize frauds in the institution using teachers for reaching out to examination boards. There is therefore no doubt that a student gets hold of examination papers days before such papers are written. This has on many occasions developed to sourness in teachers and proprietors/proprietresses relationship. On different occasions, complaints are received from true born-again teachers who sometimes refuse to connive in this show of shame. That school owners are desperately determined to see that their students score above 100% in final school exams through fraudulent means is a necessary task for school owners. What they hope to achieve in this sad game is win more customers who look upon such schools as institutions where students never fail in examinations. More students definitely mean more money for the school owners. Worse still, teachers in such institutions are poorly paid to the extent that they have no option but live on parents. School owners never want to contribute towards the development of educational institutions or just how can one find justification on private schools that students pay high school fees, with teachers lowly paid, still, Parents Teachers Association are the architect of the running of such institutions. IN this case, the parents at all cost expect that their children pass WAEC and JAMB by every means. Nigerian parents are living in the world where children take decisions on what school to be registered for SSCE and JAMB. The yardstick for determining the best of schools and a particular one to pass through is that institution where students are encouraged to involve in examination malpractice. Interestingly, evidences now abound on proprietors/proprietresses purchasing SSCE and JAMB forms for their student-candidates at high costs and filling them in for the purpose of obtaining 9 As. Our students have become thoroughly lazy and standard of education in the country have fallen very drastically. Morality has also eroded our society because the drift among parents now is that children are forbidden from caning by teachers. Teachers are thus left powerful and made to become objects of molestations and derision by bully students who capitalize on their hopelessness. These students only grow to become gangsters in what is infamously known in the country's dictionary as "cultism". That children should no longer be caned in private primary and secondary institutions is now a new development fast eroding discipline from the behaviours of children. It is ironical that parents who were caned at schools now forbid their children from receiving same disciplinary measures in an African society. The role of the government towards monitoring private schools in the country has not been quite effective if ever it must be argued that it is in force. Government neglects this bedrock sector of the economy and only complains on the increase of armed robbery and other societal crimes. When private institutions are never monitored, when education is entirely left in the hands of private greedy individuals with the aim of making money, the society is gradually being shaped towards a society full of crimes. When government fails to check the qualifications of teachers or do not set up agencies to entertain matters of complaints from the perceived private vanguards of education, when government feels tired listening to matters of educational interest, such a government is muffling the human order and woes shall betide such a government and its people.