A DEBATE ON A POLICY STATEMENT ABOUT FOREIGN EDUCATION

Buhari is our president not my president. Till date he had ruled Nigera twice. One, he impose himself or was imposed on us, the second democratic.

A DEBATE ON A POLICY STATEMENT ABOUT FOREIGN EDUCATION
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Buhari is our president not my president. Till date he had ruled Nigera twice. One, he impose himself or was imposed on us, the second democratic. We all know this as a fact of history.

The reason and purpose of this idea today is predicated on one major controversy, the debate over whether to cancel the concessionary allocation of foreign exchange at official rates to Nigerian students abroad. As a matter of fact the speech and body language of President Muhammadu Buhari has shown unequivocally that he does not consider those schooling outside Nigeria the priority of his government.

We should stretch the arguement logically by all means. I wish to state categorically that education should never be the exclusive preserve of those who can afford it. Poor people have sacrificed to send their children to the best schools and being assisted by Government to do so is not a bad idea. Why does this administration not want to be different by demonstrating its vision of transforming Nigeria through quality education? Indeed, the debate negates President Buhari’s much-appreciated and advertised credentials as a friend of the poor.

Education is the ultimate leveller. The best schools in the world are not likely to admit anyone based on your bank account. The students still have to undergo intensive and rigorous examination, interview and general screening practicese. I cannot over-emphasise that it is the dream of every reasonable and loving parent to send their children to the best schools all over the world whether they can afford it or not. It ought to be the dream of every responsible government to help its youths attend Ivy Leagues and donate them to the academic world.
Nigerian scholars like; Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, Ben Okri, Chimamanda Adichie and others would probably have remained local champions if their talents had been shelved through government restrictions.

It is wrong to say those who cannot afford school fees should return home. What it means is that the children of the rich and those of privileged government operatives would be the only ones remaining to attend great institutions. No government should encourage such disparity. No investment is bigger and better than encouraging our children to rule their world by exposing them to global experience.

When some of them went out of their ways to vote for change I’m sure its not this type of change, they would have expected some marked improvements in their lives. It is not their fault that our economy has taken a cataclysmic fall. We should not punish them for the recklessness and rascality of the elders. No matter how bad the condition of our nation is today, the kids should remain under our firm protection. They should not be made to regret their support for the change movement.

An interested observer opined thus; What PMB said, was the country cannot afford to pay school fees, maintenance fees of teaming Nigerian student through the controlled forex rate by the CBN. This is a statement and no policy followed it, that the CBN should not entertain FX requests for school fees, or maintenance fees of students. In fact, from the returns by banks to the CBN published weekly, CBN is still paying these fees.

Which makes more sense, to conserve this scares foreign exchange and pump it into our 50 federal and state universities, or to go on spending it in foreign countries, that are even inferior in standard of education than Nigeria. We have students studying in Lome, Sri Lanca, Bangladesh, Niger republic, Etc. so what the president said was a statement of fact. We cannot afford it. Nigeria have close to a million students studying abroad, and they require an average $20,000 for school fees, and maintenance each year. That is tidy $20bn. If you pump this sum into Nigerian universities, and you do that for 3-5 years, that is enough to put our ailing universities back on track.

Furthermore on his arguement, he opined that most courses available in Nigeria will not be source for but the government will derstand and make provisions for non available courses in Nigeria, courses like; Marine engineer, aeronautic studies and so on will all enjoy forex source from the government, now things are made more clearer.

But the Nigerian government will do well to put Nigerian schools in good shape before taking this measures by the means at which he intended to go sow when the fall back began to manifest, the desired change on the state of Nigerian educational system will be fully ripped, but not putting the institutions in shape that will be handy to handle the fall back of foreign students will only highlight another failure on the path of this present administration.