With Uche Nnadozie
Schools across the country began to vacate penultimate week. by last Friday many more vacated. Some still have activities lined up in the coming days- activities such as parties and result collection. Speaking of parties, that has become a phenomenon by itself. Today, end of session parties especially in private schools will make their public counterparts green with envy. Parents pay levies of many colours to have their wards enjoy this session ending rendezvous. I have seen cases where parents insist that these parties are staged. One other thing: parents almost always show up at these parties. This attitude worries me a bit, not because they make it to these parties but because they fail to attend other academically inclined invitations to the schools. Most parents don’t make it to “open day” events in the school.
The elaborate ceremonies that attend these parties should also invite some scrutiny. It appears we are a society more inclined towards vainglory than substance. The school proprietors may not like it but I think they should moderate activities and monies charged during these parties. I will like to see events tailored towards academic activities in that grand scale. Schools should begin to hold elaborate quiz competitions; they should equally try debating and literary soirees. Also they can incorporate art, I.T and technology related events. Yes I’m aware that during their end of year party there are some artistic performances included in the events, but those are hardly enough. A lot more can be done that are life changing than just jumping around in some funny costumes.
But there are more. Before the next session there is need for some stock taking. As at last year, there are almost 10 million pupils enrolled in the Federal Government sponsored school feeding programme across the nation. The programme is presently activated in 29 states out of 36 and FCT. The aim of the project is to assist poor families who hitherto did not send their kids to school as a result of the assistance the kids render to them by way of economic activity. The kids are now guaranteed at least a meal a day. Also, the meals are made in a way that it must have an egg. A kid that eats an egg a day is a huge boost to the individual’s nutritional needs. Do not forget that some of these children will count the number of times they eat egg in a whole year on their fingers, if at all. This programme has also enhanced school enrolment around the country but mostly in the north.
For 10 million pupils to benefit from this covering Basic one to three classes tells what more needs to be done. Today, many experts say there are more than 10 million out of school children in the country, since the feeding programme commenced, at least 3 million kids have enrolled in school, and otherwise the total number of out-of-school will stand at more than 13 million. We have work to do. All of us! I have seen folks who claim some education deride this programme. They say the meals served the kids look cheap and whether that is what public officials’ kids eat? They have not even done the mathematics. And they do not know that primary education is vested in Local Government administration. More importantly is that they do not care how much it costs the government to sustain this feeding programme no matter how poor the meal looks. These things run into billions of naira.
My position is that programmes like this should be supported by the people who think they know better rather than deride it. There are a lot those of us not directly involved in the implementation can do. One is awareness; the other is getting the kids out, also ensuring that the cooks and mangers do their jobs according to the rules of engagement. There is equally the advocacy to attract funding for the project. Being a critic is good, but some times critics walk the talk by helping along the chain of this kind of project. Sitting on social media to criticize everything initiated by government at all levels does not really make us the best there is. We were not created to mourn all over the place. We can engage and help and solve problems.
If we feel that cutting back or completely eliminating out of school children in our country helps the security, economic and social values of the country why should we not encourage measures that will help the process. Surely feeding the kids is not enough and I guess that is why the Federal Government has decided to renovate 10, 000 schools. We should try to hold government to its words. Just as they promised to initiate a retraining programme for teachers that will kick-off soon. These are lofty goals that deserve support from those that are better placed. We need to get every Nigerian child into the school system. It is a crucial job that must be done and all hands must be on deck.
As schools embark on their long vacation, it is important that these reforms are fine tuned over the holidays such that by the time kids return things would have began to improve. I reckon that first phase of renovations should commence over the holidays. Also a review of the school feeding programme should happen too. We should
nderstand and proffer solutions to why some areas have high out of school numbers and begin to tackle same. We should also set realizable targets. I expect by this time next year the number of out of school kids should have been down by 50 percent. That is possible. States and LGAs must be aggressive in resolving this challenge.
