Parents across Nigeria are facing higher education costs as schools reopen, with private institutions raising tuition fees by between 30 and 40 per cent amid rising operating expenses and worsening economic pressures.
Checks in Lagos showed significant increases in tuition. A private secondary school in Ipaja raised its fee from N86,000 to N124,000 per term, while another school in Egbeda increased its tuition from N250,000 to N320,000.
Parents with children in some public schools in Lagos are also facing higher charges. Those without formal employment and unable to obtain tax clearance certificates are now required to pay a N20,100 levy, up from N10,100.
The cost of getting children to school is adding another burden, particularly following recent increases in petrol prices.
Some school operators are considering higher transport charges, while others are reviewing or abandoning school bus services because of rising fuel and maintenance costs.
A school owner in Alagbado, Lagos, has reportedly discontinued its bus service, leaving parents to arrange transportation themselves or opt for boarding facilities.
For some parents, using neighbourhood transport operators is becoming a cheaper alternative. John Aderiye said he opted to engage a tricycle operator to take his son to and from school rather than spend about N10,000 on fuel for the daily journey.
Private school proprietors, however, argue that the fee increases are driven by escalating operational costs, unpaid tuition and higher wages.
Otunba Yusuf Alaka, President of the Lagos chapter of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, said a 40 per cent increase was modest considering the cost of running schools.
Alaka said many schools were also dealing with substantial unpaid fees, while expenditure on staff, maintenance, rent, levies and taxes continued to rise. He noted that teachers in some parts of Lagos could not be paid less than N150,000 monthly.
But the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria urged school owners to reconsider the increases.
Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, chairman of NAPTAN’s Board of Trustees, said parents were already struggling with school fees, books and other expenses and appealed to proprietors to limit increases to about 20 per cent.
He also advised parents to choose schools within their financial means rather than take on costs they could not sustain.
The Nigeria Union of Teachers, Lagos Council, urged parents not to allow the economic situation to discourage them from keeping their children in school.
Its chairman, Hassan Akintoye, acknowledged the financial difficulties facing families but stressed that education remained essential to the future of children.
Meanwhile, uncertainty surrounds the resumption of federal unity colleges following controversy over the concession of Kings College, Lagos, to the institution’s old boys’ association.
The Parent Teacher Association of unity colleges has reportedly called for a boycott of resumption, while claims circulated on social media that the Federal Ministry of Education had postponed the reopening of unity colleges nationwide by three weeks. The reported postponement had not been independently confirmed.
School resumption: Parents face up to 40% rise in private school fees
