Chidi Ufomadu is a major player in the Education sector, also an active businessman and currently the chairman Parents/Teachers Association of Federal Government College, Ohafia. He highlighted the role of PTAs in schools and the importance of teacher education during an interview with SUNDAY NWAKANMA Excerpts:
As the PTA Chairman OF FGGC, Ohafia how is it like in that position?
It is service. There is nothing I see about it. The people said I should be their chairman and I don’t see anything special about it.
You are a member of National association of PTA Chairman in Nigeria, is that body still functional?
Yes. The body is very much functional. Without that body, during Obasanjo’s tenure, everything about Federal Government colleges would have been scraped off. They wanted to sell all of them. It was then the body that fought for it to ensure that educational system was maintained.
What has that body been able to achieve.
You might be surprised to know that we have about 104 unity colleges in this country and we don’t have adequate teachers. The PTAs at various levels down to the national have contributed immensely to complement what the federal government has provided in terms of teachers, in terms of infrastructure. Like the name implies, it is parents and teachers association for the welfare of our children; be it academic, be it welfare.
School fees these days are very high, is proper to accuse PYAs of colluding with school management to drain the parents?
The cost of education anywhere in the world is high. Knowledge is not cheap. if we talk about public schools, there are some lapses. Those lapses is what we struggle to see how to overcome. The PTA cannot collaborate with the school authorities, but are there primarily to support the school authority, to compliment whatever is happening in the school. It is not a parallel government of its own.
That is something anybody in authority within PTA should know. You are there to compliment whatever the federal government is providing. Let me take Ohafia as a typical example. Ohafia was a village school converted to a federal school. It was not purposely built as federal government college.
You can imagine the handicap we are facing there. There was no perimeter fencing, toilets were pit toilets. Federal government provides money across the board, including Kings College (Lagos) which has been existing for a long time. How can you compare Kings College with Federal Government College, Ohafia?
As a parent and PTA chairman, what is your advice to parents and government concerning their incessant strike?
It is a delicate issue because both sides are equally right when they present their own side of the argument. I would go along with NUT. NUT covers both the primary schools as I take it. I wonder how many primary schools in this country are with water boreholes or water facilities or sanitation to that level. My observations from a distance, many of the PTAs concentrate in building mainly blocks, contract work, and fencing of schools. I don’t know how many of them with boreholes. If I must take Federal Government Colleges, I think we can go back to school. In federal government colleges, for instance in Ohafia, we have four boreholes.
Is that what you are advising the federal government?
Yes, because I do not see the possibility overnight of having boreholes, but if you have overhead tanks here and there, you can fill them with water.
What roles do you think PTA can play should governments fail to meet up with sanitation measure to prevent ebola in schools?
What is needed most is information greater awareness on Ebola prevention. Those who are in charge of our children ought to be well informed on what is Ebola. How do you come about this? What do you do? Even if it means the Federal Ministry of Education helping to distribute information to our teachers, so be it because awareness reduces the danger. If you are not aware of something, you are likely to enter into serious trouble.
Do you think NUT’s refusal to reopen schools is political?
No, I would not say that. We are talking about human life. If a child should catch Ebola in the school, I do not know the geometric projection the effect will arrive at both the family and other people. What I am saying is that there must be a middle way for us to build up. In federal government colleges we know where we are going but in some of the state-owned schools, they do not have what we have. Let us increase our chances of survival. That is all we are saying by providing certain basic things. The teachers should be given what they demanded.
in the last WAEC result as released, Abia state came second throughout the federation. What is your take on this?
Firstly, my word would go to the teachers, those who are involved in training those children and making sure they excel to this level. My advice to the state government is that if we can give teachers what they need, I think we can maintain that position or even do better. So far, I think in the field of education, we are progressing in terms of basic infrastructure we are seeing around, may be green roofs. In as much as they put up more infrastructures, they should equally put up more money to retrain those teachers.
That is something I do not see actually working out. Seminars should be organized on a regular basis. Teachers should be encouraged to go back for one programme or the other regularly. I would say kudos to the state government for assisting. In everywhere they, they have tried.
What challenges do you think public schools are facing compared with private schools?
The problem with public schools these days is that that sector has fallen into the hands of women. 90% of teachers here are women who are frost with family issues, including pregnancy and other private excuses associated with women. So you see many laxities in this sector due to majority number of the female teachers who are mostly married.
However, private schools exploit these weaknesses in public schools to exploit parents with high, outrageous and unnecessary fees. Previously too, mission schools that were known to use their schools to propagate their religious ideologies are now exploitative too, though with some level of discipline being inculcated on their students. So private schools should be encouraged, but also monitored by governments.
