Nasarawa Seeks Law Establishing Private Primary Schools

By Ayodele Oni

Nasarawa State Universal Basic Education, (NSUBEB) has cried out as private schools operators turn private residence to classrooms for learning.

To check the trend, Chairman of the board, Dr Kassim Muh’d Kassim has urged the state House of Assembly to review the laws establishing private primary schools in the State.

The NSUBEB chairman disclosed this on Tuesday, when he led management team of the board on a courtesy visit to the Speaker, Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Danladi Jatau.

Kassim believed that operators of private primary schools have completely abused the licence issued to them by running substandard basic education programmes.

“If you go to Karu LGA for instance, you see people turn their three or two bedroom apartments into schools by using the two rooms for classes and the other one room for residential purposes, and these practices fall below the standard”

He pointed out that the operators of these schools hide under the cover of the licence and parents ignorantly abandon public primary schools to patronize them, a development that makes public schools empty without pupils.

The Chairman was of the view that private schools are good, but should be given licenses to operate only at secondary school levels, assuring that the board under his leadership is working tirelessly to make public primary schools work again to the admiration of all.

He said that training, retraining of teachers, renovation and building of additional classrooms, provision of basic instructional learning materials and recruitment of additional teachers are some of his top priorities to get parents attracted to public schools.

The Chairman further appealed to the Speaker to ensure that the Junior secondary school section, which is by law under board is returned back for effective monitoring.

Responding, the Speaker, Danladi Jatau expressed satisfaction with the work of the Chairman so far saying “Since you took over as chairman of the board, we have seen tremendous efforts towards transforming the primary sector, primary education is the foundation, once you get it wrong, forget it, it is not all about structures but standard.

“And for this reason, we will give you full support to revive basic education, we are partners, you must revive primary schools in Nasarawa, and we are not going to allow mushroom schools operates in our state, and standards must be maintained.”