Parents and guardians have lamented the hike in prices of books and uniforms as primary and secondary schools resume for the 2022/2023 academic session.
According to Daily Post, the increased cost of textbooks, uniforms, sports wear and others is worsened by not allowing parents to source them outside the schools.
Parents and guardians, who spoke with newshound, said they were contemplating changing their children’s schools because of their inability to raise the school fees charged.
“I am just coming from my grandson’s school. He is in Primary 2. They told me that the books he would buy is N28,000 and we are to buy from the school at once. That’s too much. The school fee has also been increased from N15,000 to N25,000. It seems these proprietors are not considering the nation’s economic situation at all
“I don’t know if he will resume school on Monday. I may consider taking him to an affordable one or worst still, to a good public school,” Alhaja Memunat Agboworin, told our correspondent in Sagamu.
Mr Seyi, a media practitioner said parents were the ones to decide what is affordable for them, saying he would never be forced by any school to buy textbooks from it.
According to him, parents should be given a list of books and should be allowed to buy the books anywhere they want.
Seyi posited that “selling textbooks is not anything wrong, but it must not be done to extort the poor parents.”
The father of three advised parents to enrol their kids in schools they can afford instead of trying to impress society.
“Parents need to wise up these days, many of us also like to ‘belong’. It is better for me to take my wards to a school where I will pay their fees without stress, financially.
“I can’t take my wards to schools where we’ll pay through our noses. Those proprietors are not showing mercy at all. I will first of all ask questions before enrolling my children in any school. My daughter got admission into a popular public secondary school in Abeokuta. I was given the list of books and they invited the publishers to bring their books. I went to Sapon to price the books. At the end of the day, I bought those that are cheaper and those I can’t get at Sapon from them. I headed to Sapon to buy the rest. You won’t believe the price difference is in thousands of Naira.
“Parents need to cut their coats according to their clothes and proprietors should consider the parents before taking decisions that have to do with money,” Seyi stated in a chat with newsmen.
