Education
NATIONAL Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) has raised the alarm over the rate at which private schools are closing down due to the country’s present economic situation.
Consequently, the association has called for urgent government intervention to stop the trend.
National General Secretary of NAPPS, Dr Kayode Adeyemi, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Thursday.
Adeyemi lamented the large withdrawal of students recorded in various private schools and the inability of many school owners to keep their educational outfits open.
According to him, the challenges are not just for low-level schools but also, for majority of those in the upper-class, saying that they were all not finding things easy.
“Business has not been palatable and we have many schools closing down now. We have low enrollment and and there is lack of capacity to sustain the work.
“It is as bad as private school owners resorting to transportation businesses after closing down their schools,” he said.
Adeyemi said that parents were now considering medium-scale schools in order to reduce the expenses and transportation costs.
Adeyemi also said that most schools could no longer afford to purchase textbooks as many now settled for teachers’ copies and what they could do with the students in the classroom.
He said that many school owners had been begging parents to pay their children’s school fees owed since 2023, adding that rather than paying, they had resorted to and that withdrawing their children from school.
“Unfortunately, government has not extended any intervention to the private schools.
“And whereas, we are the ones supporting the government in addressing the challenges of educating the children,” he said .
Adeyemi also decried what he called multiple taxes which private school owners were being subjected to by government.
He further stated that private schools were losing teachers because they could no longer pay their salaries.
According to him, many teachers now engage in doing two to three private coaching, selling second-hand materials or taking to commercial motorcycle riding to help themselves.
“We call on government to do something urgently before the entire system collapses,” he said.
He said that since there most public schools lacked the required capacity and infrastructure to cater for the teeming Nigerian children, government should come to the aid of private school owners.
This, he said, would prevent possible increase in the number of out-of-school children in the country.
NAN reports that visits to some public schools in Ibadan metropolis showed a significant increase in the rate of enrolment, occasioned by withdrawal of children from private schools.
One of the teachers in charge of enrolment in a public school, who preferred anonymity, told NAN that she had enrolled many students who left private schools.
“They came to join us from JSS one to SS three. We keep receiving them as their parents can no longer afford to keep them in private schools due to the present economic situation we know what the situation,” she said.
A parent, Mrs Odunayo Majekodunmi, said there was no way many parents could cope with keeping their children in private schools again, hence their mass withdrawal and subsequent enrollment in public schools.
“I know many parents in my area at Oluyole who have withdrawn their wards because of high school fees. Some schools have increased their fees and this has made it difficult to keep the children there.
“So, parents now scout for public schools that are a bit okay to keep their children,” Majekodunmi said. (NAN)
A.I
Oct. 17, 2024
Tags: Dr Kayode Adeyemi Mrs Odunayo Majekodunmi NAPPS National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools
