Sustainability and Free Education Policy: An Examination of Public Secondary Schools in Ogun State, Nigeria

Purpose: The study examined whether education should be free or not among the public secondary school teachers in Ogun State in Nigeria. The study examined the status of the secondary schools in terms of funding available to public secondary schools in Ogun State. Methodology: The study applied Structural Functionalist theory and adopted qualitative method of data collection. Five (5) Key Informant Interviews (KII) and In-depth Interviews (IDI) were conducted respectively for both the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS) union in Ogun State. Result was analysed and transcribed via qualitative content analysis Findings: Findings revealed that teacher performance was not encouraging due to poor motivating factors; running of free education was more problematic and cumbersome due to inadequate funding by the government. Conclusion: The study recommended that Government need to abolish the free running of education and if not opt in or re-introduce the Parent Teacher Association (PTA levy) to the public secondary school as this will screen out unserious students who constitutes the student population in various schools across the state.