Ongoing Free Education in Imo

ONGOING FREE EDUCATION IN IMO: THE PAINS AND THE GAINS

     The last time I checked, Imo State at large was reckoned to be the only state in Nigeria that observes free education from nursery to tertiary level. Needless to that it remains the only state across the federation where education is totally free in all the existing educational levels to include nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary.

      Education is the act of acquiring knowledge through learning, either in the classroom or otherwise. It can equally be described as the process through which a person is taught better ways of doing something or a better way of living. But in this piece, we are referring to education acquired via the classroom.

     Just as food, clothing and textile remain the three basic needs of life, education alongside health remains the best way anyone could be empowered. Suffice it to say that the best way one could be made useful in any society is by giving him/her a sound education as well as adequate health care. This is why anyone who means well for any society or locality he/she finds him/herself uses every possible means to encourage the educational growth in the area.

      Be it a trader, businessman, craftsman, or a professional, you are where you presently find yourself because you were given a sound education towards attaining to that level, or you were privileged to acquire the necessary educational training. A trader who cannot boast of a fundamental training in education, will continue to record failure as long as the trade lasts, likewise those in other fields of human endeavour.

     To this end, governments at all levels are invariably encouraged to pay special attention to its educational sector. This is the reason, as soon as Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State assumed duty in 2011, he vowed to take the education of the said state very seriously as well as treat it as a priority. In view of this pledge, the governor’s first move was to declare free education in Imo State from nursery to secondary level; a step that was highly commended by all and sundry including the teeming beneficiaries. As if that wasn’t enough; subsequently, Gov Okorocha extended the free-education gesture to all the tertiary institutions owned and managed by the state.

     To say the least, the ongoing free education in Imo State has made hundreds of thousands of less-privileged parents and guardians who cannot afford the cost of private education to cough up a sigh of relieve. Most of them have been praying intensely for the governor for thinking it wise to come up with such laudable programme. In some quarters, the leader in question is regarded as a messiah who has come to wipe out poverty in the state at large.

     Though the Governor Okorocha’s free-education programme has greatly suffered from criticisms from most onlookers as well as members of the state, the truth is that the initiative has succeeded in bringing succor to countless Imo indigenes or residents, as the case may be. The critics are of the view that the free-education initiative has been unable to pay much attention to qualitative education, where pupils and students are expected to acquire sound and viable education. According to them, the colossal funds constantly made available for the free education has deprived the government of the sufficient fund required to take care of other logistics in the various public citadels of learning, thereby leading to underfunding.

     Aside the free education, the Rescue Mission Administration in the ancient state has equally resuscitated the infrastructural status of virtually all the schools involved. The various schools can now boast of befitting structure or a smiling physiognomy. Teachers are also well paid and as when due, if not the ongoing economic meltdown in the overall country that’s currently bedeviling payment of the teachers’ monthly salaries and incentives.

     One major plight that accompanies the free-education programme is that the teachers or lecturers, as the case may be, in question appear to be marred by apathy. Most of them hardly bring out time for their daily lessons. More devastatingly, some have taken truancy as an option. When confronted or asked, he or she would tell you that, after all, the pupils or students aren’t paying for the lessons, thus are not meant to complain for the maltreatment as if they aren’t receiving payment for their respective jobs. Such manner of impunity had lately if not properly checked could degenerate into an unspeakable stage in the nearest future.

    Apart from the apathy, the primary and secondary schools’ learners are tasked by the teachers to pay frivolous fees at different occasions without minding if they could afford it; in some quarters, the pupils or students would be deprived of their exam results if they fail to provide the money. These incessant extortions among other financial inconveniences invariably imposed on the learners had made most parents/guardians to cry foul.

     This implies that the government is required to set up a formidable and reliable monitoring team that would on a daily basis tour between the schools with a view to ascertaining how the pupils or students are faring. In the same spirit, the government should also ensure that classroom desks coupled with other needed facilities are sufficiently made available for the free-education beneficiaries so that they would always learn under a conducive atmosphere. Hence, in addition to infrastructure, enabling environment ought to be put in place toward boosting comfort.

     No doubt, if sincerity is upheld at all times by both the government and the teeming teachers, the ongoing free education in Imo State, the Eastern Heartland would be loaded with more gains than pains. Think about it!   

Comr Fred Doc Nwaozor

(TheMediaAmbassador)

-Public Affairs analyst & Civil Rights activist-

Chief Executive Director, Centre for Counselling, Research

& Career Development - Owerri

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