Osun State condemns handover of schools into private hands

The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) in Osun State hereby condemn in strong term the obnoxious policy of education privatization by the Ogun State. Our attention has been drawn to the handover of about 45 secondary schools to churches in the state. This action to us is anti-poor, fraudulent and reactionary. In a country where over 90 percent are living on less than $2 a day; a country where human capital development is at its abysmal level, the current privatization of secondary schools in the state is totally absurd.

Without mincing words, this policy is already taking its tolls on the poor parents in the state. In one of the schools privatized, Anglican Grammar School, Abeokuta, poor children have been denied access to the school as a result of hiked fees. According to one of the protesting parents, the fee in the school has been increased from N2, 000 to more than N30, 000. In fact, the examination fee charged in the school recently is more than the school fees paid by the parents previously. As a result, many of the parents will have to withdraw their wards from the schools as a result of this obnoxious policy. Even before the privatization, many parents could even hardly afford the increasing cost of educating their wards while living standard has critically fallen to an abysmal level in the country. Not only parents but teachers will also bear the brunt of this policy, as most of the privatized schools will have to retrench staff in order to balance off.

Consequently, the CDWR, Osun State fully supports the protest march and picket organised by the affected parents (and parent association) against the conduct of the examination into the school. We call on the parent associations, workers’ unions especially NUT, NASU, SSANU, CHOPSON, NLC and TUC, student movement and civil society groups in the state to build on the heroic action of protesting parents, so as to compel government to reverse this obnoxious policy. If we fail to do this, we will be laying the basis for the total commercialization and privatization of education and other social services not only in the state but in the country. An injury to one is an injury to all. We also use this medium to condemn the use of police by the government to attack protesting parents. We ask: whose interest is the state government serving? A pro-poor government would have taken the protest in good faith and reverse this policy. But like every anti-poor government, the state government prefers to attack the victims of its policy then addressing their grievances.

The argument of the state government that the policy is meant to instill discipline in schools is preposterous. In the first instance, most of the developments witnessed in the country are mostly through publicly funded education. In fact, most of the public officers who are now rabidly advocating privatization and commercialization are product of a highly subsidized and publicly funded education. Furthermore, it is on record that it is the government destruction of the economy which has denied majority of the citizens basic means of livelihood coupled with chronic under-funding of education which has destroyed standard in the education sector that is behind the low morale of students and youth to education. Also, the brazen corruption and looting going on in the state and country, which has made a tiny few in the corridors of power obscenely wealthy while the hardworking poor people hardly break even has further eroded youths’ confidence in education as a basis of economic and political liberation. As we are writing this statement, the teachers in Ogun state, have joined their members in other eighteen states, in a strike to compel state governments to pay their 27.5 percent salary increase tagged TSS. How can you talk about education standard when teachers are hardly paid their salary arrears?

The latest privatization further knocks a big hole in the claim of the state government that it is funding education properly. In 2008, the state government and its town-criers went to town to brandish the fact that it was funding education by 26 percent as prescribed by UNESCO. Since then, education sector in the state has gone from bad to worse. Fees in the state tertiary institutions like Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), etc have been astronomically hiked by over 500 percents while most of these institutions are poorly funded by the state government. The latest privatization of secondary school again raises the question of where the billions of naira supposedly spent on education going to. With this privatization, the officials of the state government are just acting true to type. How can one expect politicians who earn millions as salaries and allowances, aside monumental looting, care about poor parents earning less than N10, 000 monthly?

The CDWR, Osun State hereby demands immediate reversal of the obnoxious policy of education privatization and commercialization of education in the state. We also demand massive funding of education by over 26 percent of education, with the fund to be managed by elected representatives of workers’ unions (NUT, NASU, SSANU, ASUU, ASUP, COEASU, etc), students’ movement and parents’ associations to prevent the prevailing situation where the fund budgeted so far did not reflect in the state of education in the state, thus engendering corruption and perfidy. We further demand for provision of free and quality education at all levels; and for massive development of education facilities in the state and country. This is the starting point to boosting students’ morale in education.

Signed:
Comrade Waheed Lawal - State Chairman
Kola Ibrahim - State Secretary