Press Releases

We Are Committed To Foundational Free And Qualitative Education – Fashola

Jun 22, 2009 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Monday reiterated the commitment of his administration to free and qualitative foundational education from nursery to secondary school in the State.

Governor Fashola, who fielded questions from Government House Correspondent at the Lagos House, Alausa, declared, “If it is a question of whether we may drop our free education policy, the answer is no. Clearly as a State, we have no plans to interfere with foundational, free and qualitative education up to secondary school level and I think that that point must be made quite clear”.

The Governor, who expressed disappointment at the erroneous report published by an evening paper that the State Government may abandon the policy, further said, “We believe that foundational education is the most critical – nursery through primary to secondary school - and we remain absolutely committed to funding it”.

He said the erroneous impression that the State Government may abandon the policy may have arisen from the discussion on the possible extension of the policy to tertiary education pointing out that the Education Summit was only looking at the level of investment necessary to sustain qualitative education at the tertiary level.

”I believe that if you look at the body of the story, you will see where that impression may have arisen. What we are looking at is the fall out of the level of investment necessary to sustain tertiary qualitative education”, the Governor said, adding that the Education Summit was looking at how to restore the quality of tertiary education as obtained in some first class universities in the country and abroad.

“If you fall back and look at the CVs of 80 to 90 per cent of beneficiaries of the free education policy initiated by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, it shows that most of them are graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, London School of Economics, University of Ibadan and so many other first class universities after receiving free education from secondary schools here”, the Governor said pointing out that some of them are beneficiaries of the State’s scholarships which the present administration still offers.

He continued, “But what we have seen even from the last administration is that our first degree holders here always feel a sense of seeming insufficiency or inadequacy and want to go abroad to do their Masters. There is this pervading feeling that the level of tertiary education here is not of the same quality”.

He said the summit was only considering the funding and capacity issues involved in taking up free tertiary education adding, “The issues that came up at the summit is why take our first degree here and go to take another first degree abroad? What has informed our scholarship now is that we will not give you scholarship to go and study courses that our tertiary institutions here can offer. We won’t give you a scholarship to go and study Law abroad but we can give you scholarship to go and study Science abroad where our universities don’t have the capacity here”.

“We are asking ourselves, are we really in a position to give quality education at the university level if people are paying N5, 000? These are the issues that the summit threw up for consideration by the stakeholders”, the Governor said, adding that the stakeholders were looking at the burden of funding such a project.