INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Education is a mechanism which influences the nation’s ability to produce the much needed positive outcomes in all aspects of life. Social change, national integration and development in every country, depend solely on the structure and dynamisms of the country’s educational system. As the nation’s future is built around the four corners of a classroom it is pertinent to ensure quality in material and infrastructural facilities of the school (FME, 2013). It is the responsibility of the educational system to produce the changes and the needs of the society.

Education quality assurance ensures that school processes and practices are carried out according to set standards that bring about improvement in teaching and learning. In practical terms, quality assurance sets the rule, regulation, policies and requirements of infrastructural material, facilities and procedures which are to be adhered to by all schools. It also involves the processes of monitoring, assessing and evaluating according to agreed standards, and communicating judgment obtained to all concerned, in order to ensure quality with integrity, public accountability and consistent improvement in education processes and activities(FME 2010).

The overall goal of quality assurance standards and their enforcement is to sanitize the educational system of the nation from proliferation of substandard institutions particularly at basic education sector of Nigeria. As a result of vast population and limited resources, government alone cannot cater for the educational needs of its citizens without venturing into public private partnership.

Private institutions are undoubtedly providing huge contribution towards improving access and quality in the educational sector. In addition private nursery and primary schools in Nigeria have restructured, advanced, developed, and sustained the educational structure across the nation. Also, privately owned schools across the nation have come up to age in sustainability of educational deliverance with its standards, in compliance with the national standards, such as providing conducive reading and learning environment with laboratories and welfare package of it teachers. The contributions of private owned and established schools cannot be over emphasized.

Although private schools deliver qualitative education, they charge huge and exorbitant fees. However, the standards and quality of these private nursery and primary schools should be checked and monitored by government, or those agencies which control and regulate activities of educational institutions in the nation. The persistent proliferation of private nursery and primary school should be checked to prevent substandard private schools. Every policy which is not regulated is prone to abuse. In recent years, the need to control, monitor and enforce the rules and regulation guiding the public private partnership in ensuring sufficiency in education has been stressed. In addition, agitation has been made for the relevance of addressing issues of quality assurance standards in nursery and primary schools.