Sapele LGA chairman gives viral little girl scholarship and cash gifts. Information Nigeria reported the story of a little girl complaining after being sent home for not paying school fee.
Promises from different angles have been flowing for the little girl. Today reports surfaced online that revealed that Success received yet another scholarship from the local government chairman of Sapele, Eugene Inoaghan who promised to sponsor her till secondary school level. He also gave some cash gifts to her parents.
Honourable Eugene Inoaghan paid a courtesy visit to Succes’s house.
See pictures below;
God bless the little girl for pouring out the pain in her soul in anguish on behalf of millions of underprivileged children. This is a national shame because this dehumanised child-victim is not only criminalised but punished by either flogging or being sent home. Ad hoc responses by good hearted Nigerians or governments is not the solution.
It is unconsciensible for any parent to pass their children through this demeaning situation. Apart from exposing the child to extreme danger walking back alone on busy streets, she can also be molested returning to a probable empty house.
School fees are not emergencies and should be priortised and budgetted for several months in advance. Some unscrupulous fee-owing parents abandon their children by the school gate during fee drive.
Others move children almost every term to new schools to evade the previous term(s) fees they have accumulated. They tutor the children to state that their parents were transferred from other towns but due diligence will immediately reveal the lies because children in their innocence will always tell you the truth especially when you ask them about their friends and favourite teachers in previous schools!!!
Equally unscrupulous schools admit such children without evidence of transfer certificates as required by the Ministries of Education. I have met some mothers of such children and a random assessment of their hairdo, trinkets and/or dresses indicate that they have misplaced priorities. Their fathers spend a fortune at drinking bars and playing pools. Some fathers absurdly justify not paying fees saying it is a woman’s place to pay school fees
Some other categories of parents put unbearable burden on schools as they habitually abandon their children in school long after closing hours pursuing their businesses or leisure. Many a girl-child will face molestation from predators (male security guards, etc.) during this after-school period unless they are part of a regulated after-school programme.
I have always advised that schools that provide bus services must always have a responsible staff accompany the driver until the last child is dropped safely at home.
All parents should put their children in schools they can afford until whenever the “free and compulsory” …..but qualitative basic education is genuinely implemented in Nigeria. Those who would argue that it is already in place in their State know that the public school proprietors: Minister, Commissioner and all staff working in ministries, departments and agencies at Federal, State and Local government levels in the education sector rarely send their children to their public schools.
The few good public schools are actually heavily subsidised and funded by the Parents Teachers Associations (PTA) and Alumni Associations in terms of infrastructure and hiring of extra teaching and non-teaching staff on contract.
Parents of new students are in some cases required to ‘donate’ bags of cement, sheets of zinc, cartons of tiles, etc. before their wards are registered. Indeed, the best posting you can give an almost retiring Education Officer is to appoint him principal of such PTA-funded/materials donating parents school. This will provide them the opportunity to build their retirement home and a block of shops.
The sole victim in the entire scenario I have disclosed above is the child. Some will be ethically wounded for life and will graduate into examination malpractice, cultism and thuggery.
What will be our response? Send our children to climes that respect the right of children to good quality education or enact very stringent laws and impose severe sanctions on these same victims that we inevitably produce.
The National Council on Education at it’s next meeting should watch and listen very carefully to message that young heroine had sent to Nigeria and profer enforceable sustainable strategies. Start with an education voucher for each and every Nigerian child redeemable in any neighbourhood school: public or private of their choice, just like we are improving on the non-discriminatory tax dragnet.
Ekpo Nta, Esq.