Coping With Hike In School Fees

By Jeffery Ahonmisi, FRCN Ibadan National Station

Education as they say is the best legacy parents can ever bestow on their children.

As primary and secondary schools resume nationwide for a new academic session, most parents and guardians are grappling with the added burden of tuition fee increments.

The fee hike coincides with a period of dwindling spending income for families due to skyrocketing inflation in the prices of goods and services triggered by the removal of fuel subsidies.

Parents of tertiary institution students are also voicing their concerns about the high tuition fee increases in some Nigerian universities which range from one hundred to three hundred percent increment.

The fee hike has however invoked anger from various Nigerian university students including those in the University of Maiduguri, University of Benin, Ahmadu Bello University, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, University of Lagos, and other universities, who took to the streets to protest an increase in their school fees.

Despite the government’s efforts to implement loans for underprivileged students, many remain uncertain about their educational prospects.

To this end, parents are finding these challenges worrisome as some of them who are salary earners like the civil servants are yet to get salary increments as the Nigeria Labour Congress and the federal government are yet to conclude their dialogue on the issue.

Private schools have also hiked fees making it a no-go area for low-income earners, fueling concerns that a significant number of pupils may not return to school.

It is noteworthy that this situation may cause a further surge in the number of out-of-school children in the country.

Feeling concern for the plight of Nigerian parents, the House of Representatives not too long ago ordered federal universities and unity schools to suspend the implementation of an increase in their fees.

The lawmakers also asked the Federal Ministry of Education to review the new fee regime in federal government colleges and revert to the old regime.

The house members also called on the government to immediately increase budgetary provisions for the education sector to ensure Nigerians have access to quality and affordable basic education. While this intervention by the lawmakers is commendable, most states should take a cue from the act and replicate such in their domain.

Most politicians who look up to the country’s great heroes like Chief Obafemi Awolowo who provided free education to the masses which most of them enjoyed should walk the talk.

As the popular British Caribbean musician, Billy Ocean sang in one of his evergreen tracks, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, parents who can no longer afford the exorbitant fees of private schools should withdraw their children from such institutions and enroll them in the public schools.

For parents who want their kids to have an early start of education through the creche system, alternative means such as using the grandparents for the purpose should be employed to save cost.

The luxury of using school buses to transport pupils to and from schools may be a burden to the pockets of some parents at this challenging time, so couples should task themselves to do the job until the economic situation improves.

It is particularly instructive for parents to reduce the luxury their child was once used to as it is better to keep the child in school than for the leaders of tomorrow to be constantly sent home due to the failure of parents to pay their fees borne out of ego or maintaining expensive social status they cannot afford.

Finally, as the saying goes, tough times don’t last, but tough people do, so parents must guard their loins to weather this storm as there is light at the end of the long dark tunnel.