Asipa Kaoli Olusanya, is the Vice Chairman of the Lagos East Senatorial District of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Deputy APC Apex leader in Ikorodu Division. He has also served as a Commissioner for Agriculture & Cooperative in Lagos State.
The former senior lecturer with Lagos State Polytechnic is the Founder of Kith & Kin Educational Schools. He is a mentor, teacher, entrepreneur and community leader.
In this interview with the Publisher/Reporter – in – Chief, THE IMPACT Newspaper, Kunle Adelabu, at his country home at Owode located within the Igbogbo/Bayeku Local Council Development Area of Ikorodu Division, he bears his mind on the effects of the lockdown of the economy as part of the measures to prevent the spread of the novel Coronavirus on educational sector, especially private schools, appointment of new acting Rector in Lagos State Polytechnic, the crisis that has bedeviled the institution and cultism in Ikorodu among others. Excerpts:
THE IMPACT: Educational system is one of the institutions that have been mostly affected by the COVID-19 lockdown and now, the government is planning to re-open the religious centres and businesses ahead of schools. The argument going on now is that should religious centres be considered for reopening before the schools? As an educationist, what is your stance on this?
Asipa Kaoli: Schools in Lagos State were closed down on Monday, 23rd of March till date. Since the schools have been closed, the government and some private institutions have taken the responsibilities to continue to deliver services and engage the children. It is the responsibilities of the educationists, government and shared responsibilities of schools and homes to ensure that children are engaged and continue to learn so that we do not lose all the mileage we have gained over the years to rustiness during the lockdown. I have seen government running couple of educational programmes on Lagos Television (LTV) and other stations. I have also seen some Churches running educational programmes.
We have been providing online teaching since the second week of the lockdown. We have been trying to deliver according to the scheme of our curriculum but there are challenges. The number one challenge is that when you want to deliver education online, you are assuming that the infrastructure (IT) is available, accessible, simple and affordable. Are those elements available, accessible, simple and affordable to everybody? They are not there for majority of all. In a school like Kith & Kin, may be about 60% of our pupils and students can access, afford and manipulate it. There are still 40% that can’t meet up due to their backgrounds and other factors. To these set of students, the facility is not available, accessible, affordable and simple.
Therefore, they might have been left behind in spite of all our efforts. Each time I engage staff and parents on virtual meetings to see the effectiveness of the online education that we are providing, one of those things that I do ask our teachers to do is that they should do assessment to look at the effectiveness of our delivery. What is the percentage of the pupils and students that we are covering and let us find out the situation with those that are not being covered at all. At the end, you will find out that some people are just not reachable at all. They have never participated at all. It’s not their fault but the economic situation because to engage in the online classes, you need a minimum of a smartphone and that smart phone is not common with every family.
Going forward, the pandemic has made it very clear to us that technology has come to occupy a very big space in human endeavours generally and education in particular. Even when you come to the new normal situation, this Coronavirus may not go 100% just like the HIV, Ebola, malaria and Lassa fever which are still with us. We pray that they quickly come up with vaccine for people to develop immunity and live with it. No such new normal situation, we have to find some other tools to still continue to run our lives. We need to get ourselves connected, engaged and as human beings, we have to show our resilience that we can overcome this situation and dominate our space using Information Technology (IT), the tools that God has made us to create in solving problems.
THE IMPACT: Sir, still on the school resumption, what is your take?
Asipa Kaoli: I appreciate the direction the government is going on this issue. Once they directed that schools should open, it implies that they would take responsibility. As a school proprietor, I will not open unless the government says we should as well as giving guidelines and ready to take responsibility for the guidelines. We are talking about lives, particularly children’s lives. All parents are emotionally attached to their children and they do not want to lose them. Likewise, I do not want to lose mine too. One of the good quality of a school is safety first.
THE IMPACT: While stating that government must be ready to take responsibility regarding resumption, as a school proprietor, what measures have you put in place to tackle the spread of the COVID – 19 pandemic when schools eventually resume?
Asipa Kaoli: Generally, we have been listening to a lot of protocol from those who have been allowed to work skeletally. We have gotten hand washing equipment for anyone coming into the school premises, a thermometer check, protective equipment such as facemasks for our frontline staff starting with security men at the gate, and we are going to ensure that we sanitise at all time.
The most challenging task for any school will be the social distancing order. I don’t know how a school can obey this order. You have a particular size of a class and chairs arranged for a particular population. These little kids don’t even understand what you meant by social distancing. They would hug and jump on one another. Even with high school children. They may not put the facemasks on all the time. Let them see any round leather object on the field, they will start playing and running after it and forget anything COVID -19. May be until vaccine is develop and we can really sure that it would protect against the virus, before then, it can be very dicey to open schools. It’s not like Church, Mosque or market, where those who patronize them are supposed to be adults and if you take your child to the Church, you will take full responsibility. This is different from the school setting. School may be the last institution to be considered for reopening, but at the same time, education cannot stop, WAEC, NECO, JAMB and those expected to go to the next class may have been affected.
THE IMPACT: In the educational sector, the private schools are the most affected in all of this. Sir, can you quantify your loss since the lockdown?
Aspia Kaoli: It is really a pain in the neck since we have closed down. There has been no income. We have not been earning any income since the closure. But because of my moral obligation to teachers and pupils, I have been trying to discharge my responsibilities to them by making sure that those two categories of clients are still serviced. We have to make sure that those teachers that have been with us for more than 15 years and have families are taking care of. Despite the fact that no income is coming in, I should not deny them of earning something even if it’s not 100% salary. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Also, there are others who have been with us for more than 10 years and their siblings have passed through this school. Since March, we have been engaging our pupils and we have not asked them to pay anything. This is my moral obligation, but we will come to a stage when we will have to do a complete assessment evaluation and interact with parents and come to the agreement of how we can work together and ensure that we sustain the system for the good of the children.
THE IMPACT: Sir, we have been engaging other business owners affected by the lockdown, as a proprietor of a private school, what do you think the government should do to assist the schools and other private entities that have been affected by the economic shutdown?
Asipa Kaoli: Let concentrate on schools. If you look at job creation, I think that schools have the largest number in terms of capacity for job creation. Just look around you and you will find all categories of schools engaging people and providing them employment. If you look at the total number of school age children in Lagos State and look at the government capacity to absorb school age children in the state, there are over 1million children who are said to be out of school in Lagos with total national figure of children that are out of school said to be 10million. Private school system is providing a lot of complimentary roles/services in education sector. If that is so, at a time when schools are not earning anything and when schools without capacity may not be able pay salaries, should teachers be sacked or go without earning anything? These are questions that would come to mind. If that happens, how does that reflect on the larger society or the economy of the state. I think that this is a time when government should look at different sectors, in particular and to be specific, education, based on data that they have on each schools. For instance, at Kith & Kins, we pay our Payee based on our salary schedules every month. The salary schedules and tax that we pay as reveal in the data can form basis upon which government can help. They should not just decide to pay everybody across board but based on data available with the government.
Another critical issue is that there are some schools and other businesses that have taken loans for capital projects. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should be able to come up with policy to cover them. For the SMEs that have taken loans, there should be moratorium to cover up for the lockdown since they are unable to operate. There should also be no penalties.
THE IMPACT: The Lagos State Government recently appointed Mr Olumide Metilelu as acting Rector for the Lagos State Polytechnic(LASPOTECH) in the midst of unending crisis and protests and there have been allegations that stakeholders in lkorodu are not interested in the happenings in the Polytechnic. As a major stakeholder, leader and educationist, what is your position on this?
Asipa Kaoli: I don’t want to entirely agree that Ikorodu people are not involved in tertiary institutions in Lagos State, be it Lagos State University (LASU), LASPOTECH or Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (ACOED). These are higher institutions in Lagos State that first and foremost consider your merits, qualifications, proven abilities, both in academics and administration. It’s not a situation where we should allow our sentiments and emotion to override the delivery of quality administration and education in Lagos State. Lagos is the Centre of Excellence. Whoever wants to emerge as the head has to prove himself. He has to show that he’s capable and has the capacity to deliver. Don’t forget that we (Ikorodu) have produced top educationists in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole. We still have many in Lagos education institutions like Prof. Noah, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, LASU, and former Provost, ACOED. We have Lanre Kuye, who is the Public Relations Officer of LAPSOTECH and many others there. It is just that to come to the peak, we usually have many eligible and qualified people. It’s always competitive. You really have to prove your worth. The vacancy is open again and thank God that the person who is there now (LASPOTECH) in acting capacity is from Ikorodu Division. He just have to prove himself. Let him get himself prepared and go to the interview panel and sell himself. Let him sell himself and of course, prove his vision to take the school to the next level. It’s not just about where you come from but the capacity and ability have to move the institution forward.
THE IMPACT: The institution has been enmeshed in crisis in the last five years with the unions up in arm with the management and we have seen stakeholders in Ikorodu Division building halls in LASU, UNILAG and also contributing to the developments of these schools but here in Ikorodu where we have LASPOTECH, nobody seems to be interested in what is happening institution. In terms of direct and practical engagement and intervention in building halls, hostels… (cut in)?
Asipa Kaoli: I think that depends on the policy direction of the Polytechnic. If the institution has a policy to open up and bring in private investors in some areas of the Polytechnic, either for hostels or other facilities, the process is to advertise openly or tender and whomever feel qualified and has the resources will apply. It’s not by allocation.
On the crisis, Higher institution is supposed to be an ivory tower. They are non-conformist in an average tower. People think different and because they think differently, they usually come up with all kind of ideas in the society. That is the freedom one has in higher institution which should not be taken away. It is crisis of ideas to innovate and create new ideas. It happens all over the world.
THE IMPACT: Sir, as a leader in the division, father and educationist, what do you think is/are the ways out of the killings of youths by youths in the name of cultism that is now rampant in the division? What do you think that the community and government should be doing?
Asipa Kaoli: The killings by young guys who are engaging in cult activities are becoming rampant and fashionable among the youths. In those days, cultism was intellectual based with some muscles to it to force their ways and views but was not destructive or taking pleasures in gang war, killings, maiming and destroying the society. Mind you, those who were members at that time were members of the academia, but what we have today is totally an aberration from the philosophy of what it used to be. Today, those that you found in cult are illiterates, many of them never went to school and some of them are dropouts. They don’t even know why they are there except to show their muscles, threaten the society and destroy one another, intimidate and kill. And if you look at the age bracket of those engaging in this, they are between 15 and 35 years. They are usually recruited from the high school, especially when they have muscles that they want to show to their colleagues that they are the ones in town. Once they get involved and initiated into it, to exit becomes difficult.
For the way out, one, we have to re-engineer our educational system which has collapsed. You would love to be in the University that I attended. Then, you don’t have anything to do with the society because you will love to be on campus. Today, it is different when there is even no clean toilet in the University, can you imagine! They do ‘throw-put’’ in the University. A University where student cannot feed himself very well in a day. During our own time, you can feed yourself very well with 75kobo and eat quality food. In those days, you are assured of good accommodation, quality food, space and quality education. The carrying capacity of a University is matched with the population of students but all those things are gone and that is where all these problems started from. We have to address that. What we are seeing now in our higher institutions are symptoms of rottenness. Running after these cult guys, arresting them and putting them in jail do not stop anything. We must address the fundamental problem which is education. Government really have to spend a lot to improve the infrastructure in the education sector.
Government also have to make facilities, especially technology, which has capacity to engage the creative energy of these youths. Information Technology (IT) can absorb and take care of them, but there is no light, no internet and no infrastructure to make this work. All these guys are just ignorants and they have to feed themselves with what are available to them. What you are seeing now is the manifestation of survival instinct which implies that they (the youths) must survive.
THE IMPACT: Thank you sir for your time.
Asipa Kaoli: Thank you very much.
