Private schools, parents disagree on multiple charges

They are complementing government efforts in educating the citizenry at various levels ranging from nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary.The contributions of private schools to the education sector cannot be overemphasised. But as the name implies, private schools charge parents or guardians fees to educate their wards. The charges include the usual school fees, tuition fees, […]

They are complementing government efforts in educating the citizenry at various levels ranging from nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary.
The contributions of private schools to the education sector cannot be overemphasised. But as the name implies, private schools charge parents or guardians fees to educate their wards. The charges include the usual school fees, tuition fees, PTA levies, books among others.
However, Daily Trust has observed that some private schools do charge extra money from parents apart from the aforementioned under different guises related to the academic activities of their children. Parents and guardians are being charged, apart from the usual school fees, money for extra lessons, reading club, dancing club and cultural club.
Other charges are class party fees, excursion fees; class photograph fees, inter-classes competition, and P.E wear fees among others. Some parents, who spoke to Daily Trust on the issue expressed concern, saying the demands by some private schools are becoming worrisome.
They called for urgent attention to tackle the situation because it is getting out of control. They alleged that, if the trend continues as it is now, “we will reach to a point where everyone can just set up a private school for the purpose of exploiting parents.”
A parent, Muhammad Musa Aliyu of Badawa quarters in Kano State, told Daily Trust that “it is because government has allowed the schools to operate without control that they are exploiting people. Government should work out modalities of controlling the schools for better outcome.”
Aliyu commended Kano State government for setting up of a task force for private schools in the state, adding that “this is a step forward towards sanitising activities of private schools. The move will minimise emergence of illegal private schools, imposing unnecessary charges on parents even by the genuine schools and other illegal levies.”
For Mrs. Eucharia Azubuike, a business woman in Abuja, said their demands can be frustrating at times even when you desire to give your children better education. She said after payment of school fees, the schools still demand for lesson fees and sometimes they demand for money to register a child into clubs, like reading or dancing club.
She said parents are asked to pay N3,000 for lesson on one subject and N10,000 for any club the child wants to belong to, even though the teachers are the ones that suggest the clubs for the children and tell them to notify their parents to come and pay.
According to her they are introducing new things like ballad dancing.
“Another way of incurring more expenses for the parents is getting pupils to celebrate their birthdays in school which is now unavoidable because every child will want to do what others have done. You have to bake cake, buy drinks, sweets, and gift items like pencils and books to take to school on your child’s birthday,” she added.
She said: “You cannot estimate how much you will spend in a term for your children in schools because there is likely a new thing that they will introduce to make you spend more money,” she said.
Mrs. Bola Gbenga, a housewife, said the expenses are sometimes uncalled for because the demands are making learning more expensive.
Children in private schools spend more than undergraduates in federal universities, she lamented.
She said they asked for money for parties and lessons which should have been part of the school fees. Children insist they celebrate their birthdays in school because that is the trend everywhere now.
According to Gbenga, the demands, though little, at times come when one is financially handicapped and the children are too young to understand your situation; they only keep demanding until you provide.
Michael Usoro, a civil servant, said the miscellaneous charges seem to be born out of competition in the private schools without considering the effects on the parents.
He said that the mentality of Nigerians is that any expensive thing is the best, so people tend to think that to demand for money for every little thing that they introduce in school makes it look like they have standard.
“I think the best thing is for the right body to have a regulatory system that can check these private schools and their charges as well to help reduce high cost of education,” he said.
According to him, most of the schools that have moderate school fees and charges produce higher standard of intelligent children than the expensive ones.
Another parent, Muhammad Garba who has a daughter in a private school reacted bitterly to the issue of charges, saying “the charges are not only high but also unnecessary. Most parents are being exploited with these unjustifiable charges.
Another parent, Mrs. Funmilayo Ogunsolu, said the charges are uncalled for because they pay tuition fees which are supposed to cover all other expenses during the school term but that students are sent back to their guardian/parent with demand for payment of other charges which makes no sense.
However, the proprietress of a private school in Abuja, Mrs. Dupe Awarun, said this extra charges come up on some few extra-curricular activities in which parents are given the option of paying or not, such as excursion fees, end of year party fees among others.
She said most of these activities aid in learning and make school life to the students more interesting so there is nothing wrong if parents pay for them.
Commenting on the matter, the National President, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Dr. Rabi’u A. Kurfi, said some private schools demand additional money from parents because they are rendering additional services to pupils apart from the usual curriculum activities.
“We are not just trying to collect money from the parents because we want to be rich; rather it is to improve on our service delivery.
Parents should also understand that such additional curriculum activities have a lot of values that cut across the social, cultural and sometimes religious. Private schools are willing to provide more curriculum activities to enrich the skills of the pupils,” he said.
Dr. Kurfi however explained that efforts are being made by the NAPPS to regulate the trend such that the additional charges would be made optional to parents, but advised that “parents should understand that the more they pay the more their children will become conversant with so many things around them.”
He said: “By the time we make it optional, parents will have the choice to either take their children to schools where extra charges are incurred or go to those that are not charging such fees for additional curriculum services.”