Parents lament increasing effects of recession, change schools for their children

It was going to be a particularly difficult decision to make for this couple but they are familiar with making tough decisions. In their business, responding to the current recession meant they had to lay off some loyal staff because profit margins were decreasing. Their hearts bled. Now, they would have to reconsider which schools their children would attend.

Chukwuma and his wife Deola’s life dream is to offer their five lovely children the best of education and access to the best schools within their reach. This dream has come under threat in recent times. Their first child, 16 years old, gained admission into one of the most expensive private university in Ogun State, with tuition fees, other charges and expenses coming to over N2 million per annum. The other four attend international primary and secondary schools where they pay on average N300, 000 per child per term. With profit margins diminishing this couple has decided to transfer these children to good but less pricey private schools between the range of N100, 000 and N150, 000. This is the situation of a good number of families today.

Across Nigeria, there is an emerging pattern amid these changes and movements people familiar with the education space hold. Whilst there are movements from high-end private schools to low end ones on the Lagos Mainland, the Island and Lekki corridors seem unmoved for a number of factors. In some cases, parents are moving their children from private schools to public schools as recent data from the Lagos State Ministry of Education and reports from some other states showed.

“On the Island and its environs, we have not witnessed such dramatic responses from parents in terms of moving their children from pricey schools to less pricey ones or from private schools to public ones. My sister who lives on the Mainland and has her children at the Loyola Jesuit College told me that there sure is some movement on the Mainland but it is from pricey private schools to missionary ones” Bunmi Egbeyemi, founder and CEO of TLS Schools in Ikoyi, Lagos said in a telephone conversation.

Egbeyemi stated that parents consider more than money when they choose schools for their children. There are questions of value and class too. The former applies to parents in general as a matter of common sense but the latter might apply more to parents on the Island who above all consider the schools they send their children to as status symbol.

In Imo State, the recession is taking its toll on families, especially parents who pay school fees and other charges.

Chibueze Mere and his wife Vivien, a middle class family has had to withdraw their two sons from a mission school to a public school in Egbu area of Owerri. He said: “I can’t continue with the fees; though it’s not too high, but our family business has gone down drastically.” Their other two sons have since been changed to the Governor Rochas Okorocha’s much touted free public schools, where enrollment has jumped to over 840,000 since two years, from about 600,000.

For the family of Uchechukwu Ukwuoma, they are seriously considering withdrawing their second daughter from the New Laetare High School, whose fees jumped by over 50 percent. He said they would struggle to pay the first daughter’s fees, who would be sitting for the West African Examinations Council’s (WAEC) Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination this academic session.

For Okoye Cyprain, a parent and a Businessman, he had appealed to the School authorities of Kingdom Heritage International School in Kubwa, a Satellite Town in the Federal Capital Territory to allow him spread his payment of N75 000 naira of his son in Pre-nursery in the school.

“The Economy has been biting hard on me as a Businessman. I collect my loan facility from Lapo Micro-finance Bank at 5 percent interest rate, which previously was 2.5 percent. It is difficult to repay the loans without default and generate these kinds of astronomical school fees”

“Once he is done in the pre-nursery cadre, I will seek for a transfer to a middle level income school. My other two sons are in St. Bartholomeo Primary School owned by the Anglican Church. I will relocate him there once he is done with the pre-nursery, since their school fees are a bit affordable, and they give one month grace before pressuring for school fees” Okoye Cyprain told BusinessDay.

Still on relocation of children from high profile school to middle cadre school, an Abuja-based journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that he pulled out his children from a school paying N170, 000 and enrolled them in another school paying N80, 000 as a survival strategy in the present economic crisis.

Also, staff of the National Assembly, Olalekan Adetayo, said it took protests from parents of his children’s school before the school fees which was increased by 75 percent was reduced to 30 percent.

He said due to the effects of recession, parents are finding it difficult to meet up with the educational needs of their children.

Meanwhile, most Principals in the Federal Capital Territory who spoke to our correspondent argued that the present economic situation has also contributed to the increment in school fees, as many of them had to pay their huge salary bill in addition to the running cost of their respective schools.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU, Ben Egugozie & Harrison Edeh