Educationist Seeks Support for Private schools

According to news reaching us today,Government has been advised to provide an enabling environment for private educational organisations to enable them support government in its quest to raise the standard of education in the country.

An educationist, Dr. Mary Iyayi, recently gave this advice while reviewing the state of education in the country.

Iyayi, who is the founder, Cayley College, Lagos, said education should be viewed as a social service which needs support from the government in the form of grants and loans. She said private educational institutions particularly need to be motivated to partner with the government to provide qualitative education to its teeming population.

“Whether you like it or not, happenings in the education sector affect parents, children, families, communities, governments, corporate organisations as well as religious bodies. This is more reason why government at all levels must give a helping hand to the private organisations that have invested so much in the sector as the society stands to benefit handsomely from it,”

she said.

“You cannot divorce education from the society and vice versa. Schools are part of the society and if you look at our schools very well, you will discover that the ills of the society rub off on them. But the negatives can be reduced to the barest minimum with collaboration from government and other stakeholders”,

she added.

The educationist also expressed displeasure at multiple levies paid by private schools. She added that the incoming administration should also watch out for policy somersault in the sector.

He said, “Government needs to review the rate of levies charged private institutions, if education is truly seen as a social service. The frequent change in policies and curriculum in the educational sector is doing more harm than good. Yes, the society is dynamic but change in policy should not just be effected for the sake of change. Sometimes, some of the changes are carried out without proper input from various stakeholders in order to make such robust and well-thought out.” (punch)