Parents to Buhari: Education not a privilege

·         Reject hike in Unity School fees

Parents are still at a loss on why the Federal Government would want increase school fees for their children in Unity Schools at this time of harsh economic condition and when many families are virtually starving.

This was the reaction of the National Parents and Teachers Association of the Federal Government Colleges (NAPTAFEGC), to the directive for the increase, said to have been released by the Federal Ministry of Education on June 1, this year.  

The association in a communiqué read to journalists by its National President, Dr. Gabriel Nnaji, at the end of its National Executive Council meeting, described the development as an attempt by the present government to commercialise education and completely antithetical to the mass appeal that ushered it into power.

Maintaining that the 75 per cent increment from N20,000 to N75,000, was untimely and insensitive by the government, the association warned that many parents would be forced to withdraw their wards from the schools if the government went ahead with the decision, a situation that would surely worsen the education situation in the country.

Part of the communique read: “The increase of school fees from about N20,000 to about N75,000 in unity colleges is most untimely and insensitive. An average Nigerian worker whose minimum wage is N18,000 and who has one or two children in the unity colleges will be unable to keep his or her child or children in the unity colleges.

“The recent increase is a negation of the policy or principle that established unity colleges which is to make basic and secondary education affordable and accessible to an average Nigerian student.”

Appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari and the members of the National Assembly to compel the Federal Ministry of Education to revert to the old fee regime “as the education of Nigerian children is a right and not a privilege,” the association added: “The association will continue to partner the Federal Ministry of Education by complementing the efforts of the ministry in the provision of basic facilities in the unity colleges.”

While it expressed appreciation to the Ministry for making the payment of insurance levy in the schools optional, the association argued that any attempt to commercialise or make the cost of training Nigerian children in the unity colleges beyond the rich of an average Nigerian parent, would be counter-productive.

He said, “Enough budgetary provision should be adequately made and very timely released to the unity colleges to enable students to continue to compete very favourably with students of other academically sound private colleges.

“The issue of security in unity colleges must be given the deserved attention and commitment all the time. Students who have paid for books should always be made to receive them in good time and not when they are no longer needed.”
Source: Whirlwind News