September marks the “Back-to-school” season in Nigeria. It is also a period accompanied by mounting pressure and expectations on parents, as it signifies the resumption of a new academic session after a long vacation from school activities.
Ojo Babatunde, principal of Pyramid Schools, says “September marks a new season for every academia, this is also the period where schools can gather enough resources to improve and run through the session.”
A report by Coronation Merchant Bank says, “Our macro-economic research suggests that upper middle-class earnings are falling in real terms and that there is downward pressure on private sector wages generally.”
With low purchasing power, growing cost and a snail-paced economic recovery, parents are pooling various resources to fulfil their obligations, which include school fees and levies, new books among other things.
Some resort to obtaining loans at unfavourable cost while others who own stocks may be forced to sell off their positions at a loss now that the Nigerian equity market is at its lows following inherent negative sentiments of investors.
This is also the peak period for banks which offer loans for educational purposes like GTbank’s School Fees Advance, Stanbic IBTC’s school fees loan, JAIZ’s education finance, EdFin Microfinance bank among many others.
Another report by the World Poverty Clock shows that Nigeria has 86.9 million citizens living in extreme poverty, reflective in the country’s economy as well as the citizen’s standard of living.
Parents of returning students can still leverage on old relationships with schools to manage the condition of payments, parents of new-intakes into schools have little or no influence in managing the expected payments.
Parents, who cannot meet up and do the necessary things required of them, might decide to withdraw their kids and take them to a school with less financial expectations to continue their education.
Ijeoma Odey, a level 7 civil servant with a monthly income less than N100 thousand speaking to BusinessDay said “I have to send my son who is to resume senior secondary school to a government owned school as the required payments are becoming increasing outrageous.”
Korede Olowu, a mid-level staff in a microfinance bank said “I have twins who are to resume secondary school in a bid to get quality education they are to attend a school where new intakes pay the sum of N65 thousand.”
Olowu complained that despite having siblings who passed through the same school and class they are required to buy new sets of books directly from the school.
