A Canada-based don, Dr. John Ejobowah, says necessary laws on compulsory and free universal basic education must be enforced to punish parents who fail to send their wards to school.
Ejobowah, who is of the Department of Political Science and Global Studies at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, in Canada, made the call on Thursday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the don spoke at the National Conference on Exploring the Effectiveness of Quota System Policies in Higher Education in Nigeria.
“There is need for the compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 to be enforced, especially in the North to reduce or curb the rate of out-of-school children in the country,’’ Ejobowah said.

He said affirmative action in tertiary universities was lagging and quota system seemed not to be working in Nigeria “because some states do not have a good number of students graduating from secondary schools’’.

“The law of 2004 on compulsory education should be enforced. There should be compliance. Why pass a law if you cannot enforce it?

“The law requires parents to send their kids to schools and if they take them out of schools, they have to be punished.

“I do not think there is any case of a parent being tried in court. The Act provides for the court to try parents who violate these provisions. But, so far, I do not know of any recorded case.

“This is necessary because the universities get their students from secondary schools. So, we have to address the imbalances at that level so that the educationally-disadvantaged states can have more students.’’

Ejobowah further said more attention has to be focused on happenings at the primary and secondary education levels.

“This is in terms of bridging the horizontal imbalances and narrowing the educational gap between the North and the South and so on.’’

He said the primary and secondary schools, which he described as the supply line to the universities, were the major areas where there were problems in the education sector.

The don expressed concern that the supply line to universities was not being addressed. “So, it will be futile to do affirmative action at the university levels.’’

Speaking also at the conference, the Director-General of National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr Garba Abari, said the quota system was introduced in 1975 to address some educational challenges .

Abari, who was represented by his Special Assistant, Mr David Akoji, said there were questions 40 years later if the policy had achieved its objective.

He pointed out that this was because of the rate of out-of-school children in Nigeria.

“Today, we are faced with the problem of out-of-school children, especially in the North, providing a ready army for Boko Haram to recruit.

“Worse still, we are faced with the contradiction of students who have scored 290 and such other good marks in JAMB but cannot get their desired courses to study, while their counterparts with lower marks from other regions are being accommodated into such courses,’’ Abari said.

He said NOA would come up with answers to many questions facing the nation in terms of the quota system and urged other stakeholders at the meeting to contribute their quota.

The Founding Executive Director of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), Dr Otive Igbuzor, explained the rationale behind the conference being organised.

“This is for us to get the result of research commissioned by the centre on the effectiveness of the affirmative action policies in education.

“Key stakeholders from the government, policy makers, educational administrators, civil society and citizens were invited to examine the content of the policy and its implementation to propose the way forward,’’ Igbuzor said.

He said the conference would also provide an opportunity for suggesting alternative approaches to dealing with the problems and by that ensure improvement and maximisation of the quota system policy.

NAN reports that the conference was organised by the Centre LSD.

https://www.nairapark.com/news/1565343819/discipline-parents-out-school-kids-says-don