The Lagos State House of Assembly Education Committee chairman, Hon. Lanre Ogunyemi representing Ojo constituency 11, in this interview mirrors the education sector in the state with relation to how best the deficits could be frontally tackled. He also speaks on other sundry issues. TOPE MUSOWO reports.
About the recent hoes and cries on the proposed acceptance fee hike in LASU, what do you have to say sir?
Let me say that any matter that has not been brought to the attention of the house is not an issue that we would want to delve into, the administration of LASU rest exclusively with the administrative team in LASU, vis-a-vis the Registrar, don’t forget we also have the board of LASU and the senate, but this matter is a student affair and I want to believe the authorities in LASU would have consulted before that fees was announced, well sometimes people say they apply administrative discretion, given the fact that the matter falls under their purview, but I also say that we need be very careful, the way we go about taking administrative decisions, what might have informed the decision to hike the acceptance fees from 10,000 to 20,000 naira I don’t know, I’m not aware, nobody had complained to me, the house has not also received any representation from the students body in respect of the matter, there has never been any petition on the floor of the house in respect of same, I just read it in the social media and you know is not everything read on the social media, that you can hold as being genuine and authentic, to that extent I maintain my stance, I read it in the social media about a week ago and since then I have not heard anything in relation to the matter, so I do not want to make any further comments on it.
But I think that when issue comes to the fore, either from the management or from the side of the students to the house, then we will want to make comment, I don’t want to start making hasty comments and starts apportioning blames, but I think the best way to go in administering LASU is to make sure when you want to take decisions, take decisions that will be in the best interest of the students, carry them along in the decision making process, in such a manner that will engender harmonious and peaceful relationship, coexistence and also reduce drastically the crisis that we have been witnessing in that citadel of learning before now, so I think that is the best way to go really.
If this is found to be a fact that has come to stay, won’t it lend credence to the claim by the opposition that the downward review in the school fees towards the last general election is mere politics in play and the review not sustainable?
Well, whether it is political, sustainable or not, the issue in that, as obtainable elsewhere in the world, education has always been subsidized, especially where you think you want to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, you don’t want to create an extremely nouveau riche society, if education is beyond the reach of the poor masses, it is a way of saying the rich must continue to enslave the poor and whether it is sustainable or not, I know you would have noticed if you were here in the 7th Assembly, that majority of the members kicked against the fee hike in LASU and the then executive governor felt it was a matter under his purview and he is going to go ahead, but ultimately, the fees was reversed.
Coming back to what the house had earlier said, so I think that when we make decisions and felt that those decisions were right and in the course of its implementation we found out that it is not a popular decision, I feel an honourable and good administration must be able to reverse its stance, especially in decisions that will impinge on the welfare of the people, as in the case of school fees, we are aware of parents who had to withdraw their wards from school due to inability to pay the fee and I don’t think that that is good for a society where we have a developing economy, and there are brilliant but indigent children who could not afford the fees but can hold their own with children of the rich if given the opportunity.
So honestly, if it is really true that there is a hike in the acceptance fee I think its really uncalled for if the students were not carried along, at the same time how much is 10,000, so small but it will amaze you it is quite high for some class of people, so if you had carried the students along, they would have acceded to that decision if the school administration had appealed to their reasoning, if the school management was able to revert back from over 350,000 to former 25,000 naira and you now say the acceptance fee is to move up from 10,000 to 20,000 naira, this proposition if convincingly presented to the students can be accepted, because your existence is dependent on the students, and that is why I encourage that you must have good rapport with student union leaders, though there are other areas where they ordinarily had no inputs, as it pertains to how their exams are conducted, how their papers are set, how the time tables are drawn, how to determine what GP makes the first class, second class, they have no powers over that. But when it bothers on issues that deal with their welfare, as to what monies they pay and they are conscripted to buy handouts when the libraries are there with enough resource materials, you have the right to say no and kick against it, they have right to sit at round table to discuss it because it matters to them, by and large I think it is neither here nor there.
If you say the reverse is connected to political calculations alone, that the government and the party curry the favour of the people to ensure support at polls, I do not think that is the cause for the reverse, the matter was reversed because the general opinion was that that decision was not a popular one, so the timing of the reversal is not really a factor but the best and courageous thing to do, to be able to reverse yourself in that circumstance, people have tried to prevail on you and you have stocked to your gun earlier and when all hopes were down you now reverse yourself, I think it is commendable, it is purely an inducement because the generality of the people in Lagos knows the party they were going to vote for. It is not parents who had children in LASU that makes up the highest of the voting population in Lagos, so even if people insinuated they did reverse for political motivation, how would this have determine the pattern of voting in Lagos? With or without the party would have coasted to victory.
Some Stakeholders have recommended that to put an end to inglorious exit of LASU VCs which is becoming a re-curing decimal, all parties must be involved in the process of appointing the VC, including the student body and the staff unions, do you subscribe to this?
Don’t forget that the appointment of a VC is a delicate, not like when the governor nominates his commissioners, that he should consult with certain persons, maybe honorable members of the House of Assembly, council chairmen and what have you, it is a discretionary matter, that he doesn’t have to consult anybody about, he has been constitutionally empowered, so his nomination is subject to the house scrutiny, the appointment of VC is purely an administrative matter, the onus of responsibility now lies on the VC so appointed to build a very cordial relationship with the student bodies. It is not for the students to be part of the decision making processes on how the VC is produced.
The incessant crisis in LASU and the deplorable state of a number of schools scattered around Lagos gives one course for worry, as students and pupils are made to study under such harsh conditions, have any panacea even as you commence the committee job, to tackle this headlong?
You see with my benefit of having served as a member of the defunct education committee of the last Assembly, I think that if we looked at LASU and in comparison what other states owned institutions we could decipher that part of the challenges of LASU is common with them too, as pointed out like the delay in the issuance of certificates, we have had issues of missing scripts, which had debarred prospecting graduands the opportunity of graduating in the exact year they ought to graduate or go for NYSC, we had challenges of students being accused of examination malpractices and having been brought before a panel the students didn’t get to know about the panel’s decision till when such is about to graduate that they now cite a case in 100 level for which such cannot graduate, there are a whole lot so those are the challenges, we have history of unreleased results tied to missing scripts or results not actually submitted by lecturers who are also holding on to those results because of deficits or arrears of unpaid allowances and the whole gamut of problems in LASU, that to me is unacceptable, because as a member of the committee at that time I know we invited the VC to address us and saw that such results that has been released over the years are still lying there with the certificate unissued and we said that the VC must do something about the backlogs of unissued certificate there and I think that give it to him, we had a backlog seven years of certificates cleared and I think that the authorities in LASU have also taken it up as a challenge to make sure they clear the backlogs.
Now to the issue of our schools, well, let me say that by what I know and experience, we need more schools in Lagos, we need to depopulate our classrooms, that I know and we also need to address the infrastructural deficit that we have, we need to provide more furniture, we need to do more rehabilitation of our schools, we need to try to bridge the quality gap to change our education in the riverine, rural and metropolitan areas, all of these are challenges that must be frontally addressed, so as to take education to the next level.
We need to encourage our teachers to stay there and be ready to work in our rural areas, we need to provide them with the necessary where withal for them to want to stay there, we need to make accommodation for students even in the riverine areas to make sure that the children there can have hostels where to stay rather than exposing them to boat mishaps as recorded in my constituency.
We also need as part of incentives to counter the problem, what used to be rural allowance as an encouragement for teachers to want to stay, a critical look at the situation you will get to know the issue had repeatedly been tied to paucity of funds, non -availability of adequate resources, but I think that we have education endowment fund law in this state, we need to look at that law again what has happened, why has it not being very efficient and effective, how can we drive the educational process with the private sector, with public spirited individuals and with other investors in education. We need to look at all of this, I’m also of the opinion and I don’t want to let some of the things I have in mind for strategic reasons.
I am of the view that our government can drive the process of Corporate Social Responsibility.
To get philanthropy to the educational sector via certain measures that we can put in place, I even propose to put together a programme on that, the big one which is going to be the umbrella of all of these is that we should look at the possibility of having an ‘Education Summit’ in Lagos state, which will exclusively be fashioned with a view to strategizing on how we can better improve infrastructure, quality teaching, environment in education in Lagos state these are some of the things that I am looking at and I think that with oversights, synergy that we will build between the legislature and the executive, we should be able to accomplish all of these things that I have in mind.
