Since the early 90s, the standard of education in Nigeria, especially in government-owned (public) schools, has continued to fall. Today, it is difficult to say that quality teaching and learning is going on in many public schools.
This development has become very alarming as students are forced to learn under poor environment- dilapidated classrooms and without necessary facilities. The situation has also affected the quality of students churned out of such schools as it has become very difficult for many Nigerian schools to raise a “total child”, who is very fluent in spoken English, ability to comprehend or possesses sound numeracy and logical reasoning skills.
In many public schools today, students study in classrooms where half of the roofs are pulled off, there are no desks, no chalkboards, and teachers are underpaid.
For the above reasons, private sector individuals started devising means of bridging the existing gap in Nigeria’s education system by investing in ownership of Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools as well as Universities. Today, the number of private-owned schools especially nursery; primary and secondary levels, have surpassed the number established by government.
Though, individuals were allowed to own school, but such must be done under strict monitoring and supervision of government. Here, the state government through its Ministry of Education must validate and license Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools before such school can be certified as legal entity.
However, investigation by BDSUNDAY has revealed that registering a school irrespective of the level, has become very cumbersome and tough procedure that is usually very difficult for most school owners to meet. This discourages school owners from registering their schools, and this, perhaps, explains why over 50 percent of private schools in Nigeria today, operate as illegal entities.
Private school owners deal with customers, who are the parents of their students. Today, many parents believe that their children can only get quality education from schools that are duly registered and approved by the government. This is why many parents are always conscious of the status of the school their wards attend.
By implication, if a secondary school is not approved by the government, it automatically means that such school will also not be approved by West African Examinations Council (WAEC), an examination board that conducts the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), for University and JAMB entry examination in West African countries, neither will such school be recognised by the National Examinations Council (NECO).
This means that students of such schools will not be allowed to write their JSSCE and SSCE exams within the school premises. Alternatively, school proprietors of such “illegal schools” have to make an extra effort to register their students with a government or private-owned secondary school that is government approved, to enable the students participate in such exams.
Many secondary schools have existed for close to 20 years without taking the bold step to go for state government approval due the huge financial requirements and the cumbersome procedures involved in the registration, Helen Akhigbe (not real name), principal of one of the big schools in Lagos, told BDSUNDAY.
The visioner of the school, according to Akhigbe, must start from day one to put the required facilities in place bearing in mind that “Rome was not built in one day”. By so doing, she said, one day the school may be able to satisfy the entire requirements as stipulated by government.
Processes of registering secondary school in Nigeria
Are you a prospective or secondary school proprietor? Do you have the vision of establishing a legally validated secondary school, someday? Here are the requirements:
First, the government must approve the foundation of the school and the building plan to certify that the school building is good enough for the students to learn.
Secondly, the school must go for name search in the State Ministry of Education to ensure that no other school is making use of the same name. However, if the name is already in use, you will be advised to change the name.
Thirdly, after the name search, the school owner will write for site inspection of the school facility. The ministry will send its officials to come and see the topography and location of the school in order to ensure that all the special rooms are in order.
“When you write a letter requesting for approval of your school, the ministry will advise you on what to do and there are different units and committees under the ministry handling different segments of the registration,” Akhigbe said.
School special rooms
Special rooms include standard hall, sick bay, well ventilated classrooms and required number of toilets. For instance, if you run a mixed school, it is expected that boys will have separate toilets while the girls will have theirs. Teachers must have toilets and visitors must also have separate toilets, all amounting to about 15 toilets.
The school must have three laboratories for Physics, Chemistry and Biology. It must also have Home Economics room and Fine Art Studio.
The Fine Art Studio must have about 20 donkey chairs where students will put their drawing papers to draw. There must be open cupboard, display charts and curtains made of Kampala material as well as display of students work.
“By the time the school owner finishes with the Fine Art Studio alone, he or she must have spent a minimum of N500,000 to N1million to set up standard Fine Art Studio,” Akhigbe said.
In the Technical Drawing/Basic Tech Workshop: it is expected that the room must be cross-ventilated, must have five working tools in the areas of metal, plumbing, carpentry and painting, among others.
The idea, BDSUNDAY understands is to enable students that cannot further their education to learn how to be self-reliant or self employed by learning handiwork.
The Food and Nutrition/Home Economics room: must have gas cooker, cupboard and plates, local and foreign kitchens. It will also have the textile angle that must be equipped with a minimum of five sewing machines and other sewing accessories as well as display of students work such as already sewn clothes.
Laboratories: research has shown that it will cost nothing less than N10 million to set up a standard laboratory. For instance, the labs must have sinks with two-way taps, gas, preparatory room and all the needed chemicals and apparatus, which must be inspected one after the other by the ministry’s supervisors during the site inspection.
The Biology Lab must have all the models of the parts of the body and the special organs of the body to be used by the Biology teacher as teaching aids for students.
The classroom must have display chart on various subjects, while the Computer room must have a minimum of 30 functional computers with truncated cables to avert the danger of students playing with naked wires.
Also, the need to be ready for emergency situation is why it has become essential and very compulsory to have fire extinguishers mounted in all the special rooms and other strategic places in the school.
Akhigbe says, “My school bought about 20 fire extinguishers but the ministry officials said it was not enough and insisted that we must buy another five to make it 25. And sand buckets were placed under them.
The Admin office
The principal office must have a display of the school organogram showing structural hierarchies of the school, starting from the Principal – vice Principal- HODs – Subject teachers – Guardian/Counselor – Teaching staff and non teaching staff – Students Representatives Council (SRC) – Prefects – Class captains – students.
In addition, there must be a display board inside the Principal office as back up to the general display board outside where information can be made public. There must be shelf and standard table in the office. It is expected that the office must have cross ventilation with comfortable waiting room that has functional fans and good seats.
The Principal must have a statutory record for both the teachers and the students. Teachers must have dairy to record day-to-day work. The teachers must have lesson note and lesson plan, time table, mark book (test book), record book, class attendance register (for students presence) and subject attendance register, which is different from class register, for those students present during the class.
Thereafter, it is expected that the ministry officials must see the learners’ record of work, which is the students’ notes. They must see whether the teachers are following the scheme of work week-by-week, and whether the students understand the teaching because the students will also be assessed by the officials based on the topics taught.
There must be statutory records that include log book, visitors’ book, recommendation books and outward/inward books; nominal roll of the students; teachers’ attendance register and movement book that state teachers’ movement within school hours including the purpose of going outside the school premises within school hours.
Also, there must be curricular activities (learning work) and extracurricular activities that include sports, debates, quiz, dance troupe, drama and others. The students’ files must be readily available in the Principal’s office and the ministry has committees such as food, time table and examination committees that will assess these facilities and records one by one.
The Principal must have plan for each terms, which he/she must evaluate at the end of every term to know whether it was achieved or not.
“For instance, my school has mapped out the plan for next term. As expected, we have student-teacher schedule for impromptu speeches, drama or casting of news, among others,” Akhigbe added.
The spiritual aspect of learning must also be there. For instance, some schools usually have 1 hour programme after school on Fridays where moral instructions and Bible teachings are taught. This is to ensure that a total child is brought out in the students. These mentioned aspects of schooling would be handled by different groups of inspectors coming at intervals in numbers of two or five to inspect.
On the site inspection, the school will be informed on the final day the different committees from the ministry will come to the school together to do the final checking. Here, about 20 officials will come to do the final checking of all the required facilities. This will help them to know if the school owner borrowed or hired the facilities that were approved during the site inspection.
Special Recognition Inspection
At the end of site inspection, the school will be asked to move to the next stage, which is Special Recognition Inspection (SRI) that comes after you must have paid for approval form and inspection fee.
Before coming for the SRI, those facilities seen during the site inspection stage will be requested for all over by the ministry officials. The school would be given a form that will contain about 32 items and one must not miss out. They will also request for photographs showing the front, inside and all the school special rooms. These facilities must be documented in pictures and sent to the ministry in order for the commissioner, who did not come in person to see evidence of those items in pictures.
The school will be expected to carry the entire detail file to the ministry including the files of the teachers to ensure that the teachers are teaching the subjects they specialise in and if it was discovered that any of the teachers is not teaching their subject of specialisation the approval will not be granted until the school employ the right teacher to take up that singular subject.
On the day of Special Recognition Inspection, all the directors heading different units in the ministry will come to the school to check areas such as building plan, education, curricular and others. On that day, about six directors will assess the Principal alone to know if he or she knows the job. Other directors will go to the classes to watch the teachers teach the students. After this exercise, the inspectors will call the teachers and Principal to give their report one after the other in the presence of the school proprietor and also give their recommendations.
Approval stage
After this, the directors will report back to the ministry. They will seat for a minimum of two to three weeks before coming up with the final report. If the final report certifies the school fit, the ministry will call the school owner to come to the ministry for their approval letter. This is when you will know that your school has been approved.
This does not mean that the process is over because when the school writes to WAEC or NECO for the approval to become an examination centre. The managements of each of will come to inspect the school allover.
Registration cost
Schools run away from the process of registration because each of these mentioned stages cost the school owner a huge sum of money.
For instance, the approval letter may cost over N200,000 to obtain. On that day about 25 directors from the ministry will come for the final site inspection, you must spend a minimum of N500,000 to host them. It will be the responsibility of the school to host them because they are expected to stay from morning till night. Therefore, you must provide good breakfast, lunch and supper for about 25 directors.
Akhigbe told BDSUNDAY that the time frame it takes a school to register depends on how prepared the school is, because, “all the facilities required must be provided; the school must be painted and the outward decor such as flowers must be in place. There must be indoor games as well.”
Akindele Obafemi, owner of one of the big nursery and primary schools in Ota, Ogun State, told BDSUNDAY that in other countries of the world, education is given priority such that in some cases, government gives tax holiday or tax rebate to school owners.
According to Obafemi, government in other countries of the world increases the infrastructural support given to schools to enable them operate well and give their citizens good education.
“In Nigeria, the reverse seems to be the case. Private sector started investing in the education in order to help government to develop the education system but it has not been easy for us school owners. The difficulty as well as the huge financial burden imposed on schools that strive to validate with the government, is unimaginable. Government needs to help the private sector people to rescue the nation’s education system,” Obafemi said.
Processes of registering nursery and primary school
Firstly, just like secondary, the school owners have to get the name of the school searched and approved to ensure that no other school is using the same name in that state. The school must be registered with corporate affairs commission (CAC) as a business entity.
Secondly, there should be a building that can accommodate the students comfortably. The building must have the number of classes that are required, good toilet facilities, sick bay, library, premises to serve as playground for the pupils; canteen or food vendor etc.
In addition, there should be documentation for the school building like the survey and approved building plan, etc.
Afterwards, the ministry officials will come to the school for site inspection. Here, the building plan will be inspected including other facilities that need to be put in place. After that, the ministry officials will tell the school owner of the things to do.
“Those things do not come easy except you go to the ministry to graze people’s palm. This is why you hardly see upcoming schools that are government approved because it is difficult for their owners to muster the financial muscle to pay the legal and the uncounted-for fees for the registration, and also put the needed facilities in place,” Obafemi stated.
Ironically, he said, these ministry officials are paid by government to do this but school owners are being arm-twisted to also give them money, packaged in envelopes, as freebies.
“School business is capital intensive and most of the people into the business raise the capital by themselves because it is difficult to go to banks due to high interest rate that will be near impossible for school proprietors to pay back. This is why many are not coping and if the school fees are too high, the parents will also revolt,” he added.
For school owners like Obafemi, government needs to digitalise the system to enable people do the registration process online but that does not mean that the officials should not come to the school for inspection because it is also very important to inspect the school to ensure that things are in order.
“Digitalising the process can shorten the time for the registration, which takes about five to six months due to the cumbersome procedure.
Obafemi told BDSUNDAY that running an illegal nursery and primary school, means that the school owner must take the pupils to a government-owned school or an already registered school, for the pupils to write State Common Entrance Examination.
“We used to take our pupils to a school that is registered with the government and our pupils wrote the exam under the umbrella of that school. Most parents believe that their children do not need that Common Entrance because most of the pupils leave primary to private secondary schools.
“So, only those going to public schools write the exam while others go to the school of interest to write entrance exams. This is why many are comfortable to run ‘illegal schools’ for years without making any effort to register the school with the government,” he added.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
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