Who else, after El-Rufai and Masari?

Sadiq El-Rufai’s arrival at a public school, earlier this week, is probably the most publicised school enrollment in Nigeria’s modern history. But that’s not bad, in fact it’s a very good thing because we need to give as much publicity to our leader’s positive actions as we do to their negative ones.

Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s decision to send his six-year-old son to a public school is said to be in fulfilment of a campaign promise he made three years ago. It’s great that Arewa’s ‘action governor’ has seen it fit to redeem this pledge.

Also three years ago, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina state did the same when he took some of  his children (names not declared) to a public school and had them enrolled. He won our applause, naturally, because this columnist has always advocated a return to the days when public schools were everyone’s first choice and private schools were almost unknown.

When a more drastic form of this idea was first mooted by Professor Idris Bugaje, over two decades ago, I was one of those who readily welcomed it. It was at a conference of Northern old students which held at the Arewa House in Kaduna. The conference was organised in order to brainstorm on the problems confronting Western education in Northern Nigeria, with a view to finding lasting solutions to them.

Dr Bugaje, as he was then, was one of the main speakers there. He boldly suggested that the only way to salvage the education sector was to close down all private schools and force all parents, public office holders and otherwise, to take their children to government-funded schools. He believed that was the only way public education could be resuscitated and given the attention and priority it deserves.

When afterwards, I went ahead and did a vox pop on the issue, I was surprised to find out that most parents were not in support of the suggestion. Many felt it was too drastic a measure to close private schools for any reason, because they believed the public ones could not meet up to the challenge of absorbing the huge population of students that will line their doorsteps.

But many others also believed that the best way forward will be to make it compulsory on all top public office holders to enrol their children in government schools. Their reason being that with this calibre of people having a stake in public schools, they will be given the care and attention they deserve.

Governors Masari and El-Rufai obviously subscribe to this theory, since they’ve both enrolled their young children in public primary schools, in Katsina and Kaduna cities respectively. Masari too was said to be fulfilling a campaign promise he made since before he was elected the first time.

In keeping the promise, Aminu Masari not only enrolled his own children in a government school but he also issued a directive urging top civil servants and political office holders to do the same.

According to news reports, the state SSG, the governor’s former chief of staff and a few commissioners had all taken their children and wards to a public school, three years ago. At the time the school of choice was the Family Support Primary School, because that was where the governor’s children are. And naturally, the fortunes of the school quickly began to improve because of the presence of those VIP pupils.

By now I don’t know how many other public schools in Katsina have managed to attract a similar category of pupils or students, as the case maybe, but there ought to be such progress, otherwise the governor’s commendable step will be considered a failure.

And this is why I’m appealing to Governor El-Rufai to also issue a directive, urging his commissioners and other top ranking state officials to equally enroll their children in government schools.

I mean, it is only when high-level state citizens comply with the governor’s directive, of taking their children away from private schools and enrolling them in public ones, that many of them will benefit from improved infrastructure and quality of educational output.

This is not a campaign against private schools but it is an admission that private schools alone cannot ensure an educated populace, because majority of our people just cant afford to pay those ever-increasing school fees.

It Is also an admission that no country ever develops where the education sector is entirely in the hands of private individuals. In Malaysia, where Professor Bugaje drew the inspiration for his suggestion over two decades ago, public schools run at a par with private schools because the government funds and takes good care of the public education sector. Parents who took their children to private schools did so out of choice not because it was a necessity.

The same thing obtains in Turkey where government schools are sometimes even better than private schools, according to a Turkish acquaintance of mine. Everywhere in the world, where the government is interested in mass education of its population, it had taken the bold and important step of providing good quality education to its citizens through the public education system.

There is no other way to do it. But in Nigeria where the sector has been neglected for too long and private individuals and organisations have been making a kill by establishing schools and charging whatever they wished, only a step such as the one taken by Governors Masari and El-Rufai can save the system.

Over 80% of our leaders today, at least in the North, are  products of public schools. I see no reason why they should not do all in their power to rescue public education. There is great merit in what these two governors did. Though it might not be very comfortable at first, once governors and other top shots make the sacrifice by taking this step, children of ordinary citizens will benefit greatly from their sacrifice.

Inevitably, they will enjoy quality education from public schools, a luxury which they can’t afford now. And it will all be thanks to a legacy such as the step taken by the Kaduna and Katsina state governors. Here is hoping that more and more governors, especially those in Northern Nigeria, will do the same. This is a sacrifuce necessary to salvage the future of our children and of generations to come.