I dont have an apt title for this rant but I know what am saying.
A friend was gisting me the amount a secondary school, one of those international wannabes charge for a session for a JS1 kid. Pls guess? Anyone? N1.4 million (one million, four hundred thousand Naira) for a JS 1 child! An SS1 student just joining the school has to pay N1.6 million. Yep, u heard me. for a session!!!!
Ok, so am not a rich kid, never have been so the idea is CRAZY to me. So, does anyone agree with me that this is some kind of madness????!!!
We can say, well, thats for rich kids now. i will tell u. my friend, a fellow lawyer like me (pls be informed, practising lawyers in abuja generally earn peanuts) enrolled his 1 yr old kid for kindgergaten. pls note, all they do is teach them a few songs and make them sleep. they paid about a 100k for that child and no, thats not been outrageous, thats one of the fair prices u can get.
The secondary school thing is particularly annoying bcos its not like angels or professors teach these kids, normal people do. except u count one of those few oyinbos that circumstance bring them here to come and teach as extraordinary. i do not also think the ACs in their class rooms and cyber cafes are extraordinary factors too that warrant the charge of such exhorbitant prices.
For some parents, its not so much about their wish to get the best education for their kids, its about their own status and pride so they can say: "my kid attends such and such school, its very expensive".
i was reading the first edition of Flair, formerly TrueLove and there was this article about parents using the school their kids attend to show that they've got "Class". Those housewives dress to the teeth just to go and drop their kids and go back home o. But i digress....
Just before u go off thinking, "Omotee, u r saying this bcos u dont have that kind of money now or u r just beefing the rich". Not exactly. Of cos i pray and hope to be rich too. But its not necessarily for N1.4m school fees and thats not me not caring about my kids education.
However, am just worried about other people who will never be that rich and will never be able to afford that kind of fees.
The idea of public school is gradually dissappearing, everyone think its for the very poor people so everyone either has their own school or attends the Rich school or flies abroad. Truth is, we all wish to study above but we all shall not be able to do that. We all cannot be able to afford to pay N1.4 mill per session for our kids.
Federal Govt Colleges used to be the best schools then, but now? Nobody wants to send their kids there so the standards have dropped, they are practically abandoned. Its all about private schools now. But the truth is, not everyone can attend a private school.
I ask again, is it such a terrible idea to resuscitate public schools?
I saw a documentary on Rivers state and saw that the Governor is building a big public school, has all the good plans and ideas for the school. If the idea for the school becomes a reality, with all i heard, nobody will be under tremendous pressure to send their kids to public schools bcos all the ACs and nice structures and good teachers in the private schools are also in the public schools.
If this trend goes on without a solution, its gonna be sad.
All schools will gradually become private. Public schools will remain in the village.
It will be said cos the rich kids and poor kids will all grow up and be in the same society.
Rich kid attends great school, becomes a good child, gets good job, gets rich and buy great expensive things just to make life comfortable.
Poor kid attends bad school or no school, never finds a job at all, has no money to even eat.
Here's where they all meet:
Poor kid becomes armed robber or militant and robs or kidnaps rich kid. in an unlucky situation, poor kid kills rich kid.
The world is a complete circle; we all still meet somehow.
So, is it just me or this is an actual issue?
