Keep your child at home and go to jail – Benson Agadaga
By JOSSY IDAM jidam14@yahoo.com
Saturday, December 30, 2006

•Benson Photos: Sun News Publishing

Smoking Gun Index

The Bayelsa State Chairman of Universal Basic Education (UBE), Hon Benson S. Agadaga is going tough on parents and guardians in the state who are yet to enroll their children into the free education scheme. In this exclusive interview with Saturday Sun he reveals innovations being introduced into the state and nation’s school system and problems militating against the efforts.

Is it true that you are spoiling for a fight with parents and guardians who yet to enroll their children into the UBE programme?
Yes. In Bayelsa State, any parent who doesn’t send his child to school is risking a jail term. The term may be for a month, three months or six months. The options are two to ten thousand naira.
For it to be fully operational, the state government and its lawmakers are fine-tuning the details. The governor of the state, Goodluck Jonathan is very supportive.

How will it work?
With the backing of the legislature, we will have mobile courts. Any child seen loitering, idling or hawking during school hours will be picked up and taken to his parents or guardian. Those are the people to be held responsible for the child not being in school and for the child not to benefit from the well–thought programme of the Universal Basic Education in the country.

You were just appointed a few months ago. In fact, one is inclined to think that the Universal Basic Education is only a buzz word.
No. you can’t say so, it’s really a noble project. If the principle is honestly followed and implemented, the country and the populace will be richer for it. At the moment, you won’t feel the gains. Nigerians will have to be patient and supportive of the programme.

But the 6-3-3-4 structure remains. So, the UBE is simply an old wine in a new bottle?
Not like that. The 6-3-3-4 structure remains but the entire fabric is not the same. The UBE programme has been overhauled and strengthened it. Now, when a child undergoes primary and junior secondary school, he should be literate enough to read, write, speak and choose and build a career if he doesn’t want to go to university.

We’re now introducing computer education in primary school. We want the Nigerian child to be computer literate and to compete with his counterparts in America and Europe. Every thing is now computerized. Any body who can’t use the computer is considered an illiterate. Though he may have a degree, if he is not computer literate, the people outside Nigeria still see him as an illiterate.

In Bayelsa, we want to raise a total child. We are introducing nursery to the school system. The private schools do better because they start the child early. We want to do the same here. We owe this to the governor of the state, Goodluck Jonathan. He’s a man of vision”.

It looks like you are cramming in a lot of things into the system. Are you saying your teachers are computer literate and how exactly will computer illiterate teachers make the school children computer literate?
That’s a good question. We’re re-training our teachers. The minimum qualification for teachers here is NCE. We have phased out Grade Two teachers, NTI and gone are the days when children were kept at home until they are old, until when their hands can go across their heads. We have discovered that early start is good for the child.

We learnt you’ve got approval to employ 2,000 teachers for post primary schools. But even at this, we don’t have enough trained teachers in these state to fill up the need. The reason in that we do not have a teachers training college.

The state government has constructed some buildings for JSS and we on our own have also constructed more than 20 buildings. We do it every quarter.
Besides, UNICEF and Uniport are consulting for US UNICEF, for instance helps us to retrain teachers once every month.

You talked about incorporating nursery into the existing structure. Don’t you think it will require more classrooms, teachers, money and so on?
Yes, we’re already building more schools, classrooms and carrying out renovation in the old ones.
The UBE is designed to ensure that the schools have teaching aids, well-equipped laboratories and liberaties. In Bayelsa State. We now go to Rivers Delta and other adjoining states to recruit. The federal government also helps out by sending us some teachers. You see, we are now trying to professionalise teaching like other professions. Those with first degrees and want to be teachers should go and do post graduate studies in Education.

Chairman, you’re working really hard. The UBE programme is quite lofty but after all said and done, cultism, examination malpractices and low standard still plague the school system. How do you reconcile this?
To start with, the issue about low or fallen standard is controversial and debatable. As for cultism and examination malpractices, we are tackling them. the child cannot be raised in isolation anymore. His family, the society, and of course, the school are all involved.

Of all the mission schools in the state-there’s only one or two are going to be returned to their former owners. Emphasis is now on the moral upbringing of the child. Discipline the way it used to be must return. It can’t be business as usual any more.

The State took over the mission schools because it thought it will run it better. Isn’t this hurried handover an admission of failure?
You are stating the obvious. But it’s not too late in the day for them to pick the bits and pieces and carry on. We know what went wrong and we are trying to remedy it. The UBE is trying to revoke the existing national policy on education which came into existence in 1981. what it stands to do is that education today is made to be relevant to the needs of the child, society, and be directed towards self-substance and self-reliability. We want to bridge a gap where when a child comes out of school, he spends years looking for a job. when a child comes out of school, he should be employable. We’re going back to basics. The children are now going to be fed in school.

Isn’t this an indirect way of bringing back the boarding system?
No. We intend to only provide lunch. It’s presumed that the child must have had breakfast at home before coming. So, we give him lunch to ensure that he is not distracted by hunger.
Other states are already test-running it. we are a bit late here. But we are going to start in a couple of weeks. We shall randomly pick some schools and see how it goes.

This might be another avenue for teachers to feed fat. How do you even address absenteeism by teachers, unauthorized levies and low moral of teachers in discharging their duties?
Every thing has been considered and no teacher is going to abuse it. Any teacher who tries it will be sanctioned. Absenteeism and unauthorized levies happened in the past because the schools were not adequately supervised. Here in Bayelsa, no quarter passes without our supervisory team visiting the schools. Any teacher caught misbehaving will be disciplined and dismissed.

But the teachers have their own grouse. How do you expect them to survive when they are owed arrears of salaries and other entitlements?
That was in the past. Governor Goodluck Jonathan’s administration doesn’t owe any teacher here. When he came and found out that teachers were being owed, he cleared a backlog of the areas and even ensured that they received their salary increment and other entitlements. When Dr. Jonathan came in, he spent five billion naira to offset the arrears owed teachers in the state.

After the payment, it began accumulating again. Don’t forget that the payment of teachers salary falls directly on local government and not the state. To forestall the reoccurrence, the state now deducts 35 percent from the local governments allocation in the state.

If the local governments are ment to pay teachers and allocation given them covers it, how come they are not called to book when they fail to discharge in the responsibility?
The erring ones get punished by their own people. You perhaps may have noticed this, the chairmen of local governments in the state are constantly being impeached. This is usually as a result of mismanaged fund.
Primary education in Bayelsa State is now having a face-lift. The UBE is now trying to have teeth. Before now, people payed lip service to education but now, with the combined efforts of the federal government, the state and local government, primary education is improving in the state. So, where the federal government gives N140 million per quarter, the state also gives N140 million and you now have N280 million per quarter.

With this, we now procure books for teachers, students, train teachers and non-teaching staff in the primary school sector. We also build and renovate classroom blocks. We also carry out adequate supervision of schools in the state.

When I assumed office, teachers in the state were on strike. My aim is to give free education to Bayelsa children and to ensure that Bayelsa is de-listed as educationally disadvantaged state in the country.

Bayelsa State is mostly riverine. How do you reach out to migrant fishermen’s children in far flung fishing outposts in the creeks?
There’s already a programme in place for adult and migrants in the riverine areas. The funding doesn’t come directly under the UBE. The Federal Government funds it through the Ministry of Education. There’s no fishing port in the state that doesn’t have a primary school. In some places, the state has even introduce JSS. The entire populace is being carried along.