As online learning fees pit parents against schools
Children engaged in an online learning
If education is expensive, one is often told to try ignorance. However, the various fees charged by private schools in Nigeria to provide online classes seem to have left parents between a rock and a hard place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, writes Head, Education Desk, IYABO LAWAL
Easily excited Folorunsho runs up and down the street with no cares in the world. Often bleary-eyed, he stirs the dust beneath his feet as he treads the path fleet-footed. He does so from dawn to dusk when his parents return home from work. His younger sister spends more time peeping into their neighbour’s apartment, through the window. She stays there as long as her object of interest is in action.
Daniella has two siblings. She has been enjoying online learning via WhatsApp voice notes, chats, PowerPoint slides, and sometimes Zoom video conferencing with her teachers. So do her siblings too. They started the online class in May when it was obvious there is no end in sight to the closure of all schools in Nigeria, both public and private.
It was an exciting mode of learning for Daniella and her younger brothers. Each morning, they wake up excited starry-eyed, eager to learn more.
However, many Nigerian parents are not as eager as these little children. They are groaning under the weight of the burden heaped on them by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are grappling with job loss; pay cut, furlough among others. They are also faced with the need to salvage the future of their school-aged children.
After a lull, private schools suddenly woke and are urging parents to enrol their kids in online learning. But the parents are shouting blue murder. Lagos State Commissioner for education, Mrs. Folashade Adefisayo, gave an insight into the looming crisis.
She said, “There are between 18,000 and 24,000 private schools in Lagos. The schools that are able to do online learning are less than 150. There was a day I had a thousand messages on my WhatsApp. My phone nearly crashed. Parents from small and low-cost schools were bitterly complaining.
“It is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Talk to your parents. If you think in your school you are comfortable with it, negotiate with them. Let everybody negotiate and get to a win-win situation that suits them all.”
The negotiation has to do with how much a pupil should pay to benefit from online learning. Schools set various fees but the parents are kicking. Ignorance is bliss. It can also be expensive. The arguments are varied as they are perplexing and border on paradoxes all wrought by the COVID-19 disruptions.
Enrolling a child in Nigerian private schools does not come cheap; a big school or small school. Rich and poor folks alike are disenchanted with public schools; so, they go for any schools that bear ‘private.’One of the most expensive private schools in Nigeria, Atlantic Hall, once charged a monthly fee of N195, 000 per pupil for virtual classes. (It was later reduced to N175, 000 after parents huffed and puffed.)
Another private school, Mind Builders School, charges N10, 000 for primary school and N20, 000 for secondary school classes. According to reports, Corona School charges N30, 000 for nursery classes, N50, 000 for primary school children, and N65, 000 for secondary school pupils.
Some schools ask parents to cough up between N25, 000 and N80, 000. Apparently, schools with higher tuition prior to COVID-19 charge more to activate online classes.
A school in downtown Ojota, Cross & Crescent, which uses a combination of WhatsApp, WPS documents, and Zoom video conferencing tool, charges N5,000 (for its Basic 5 pupils)per month for online classes for a couple of hours, Monday to Thursday.
“It’s a win-win. However, it comes at a cost for everyone,” said a parent who did not want to be named.
“Consider this: you need data to connect to the online class. You also need a smartphone; perhaps, an extra one. You need power. Public power is erratic. So, you have to fuel your generator for at least three hours each day.”
She added, “Besides, you need somebody to be on hand to be with your child if you always have to be away from home. The school/teachers too face a similar challenge of power and internet data. Something has to give.”
Many parents, especially those whose children attend schools they had not conducted their second-term exams, wonder why they should pay for a term that had already been paid for. For others, the argument is how much can a child learn in limited hours over constrained platforms and circumstances.
On April 2, Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, had said, “We cannot be held down by COVID-19. We have to deploy all e-platforms to keep our universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and other schools open.
The minister’s statement has since been considered “effusive and excessive.”The Nigerian government touted keeping schoolchildren “in class” via TV and radio educational programmes but constant power outage in their area has not allowed Folorunsho and his sister to benefit from that.
Besides, such an initiative is a far cry from the personalised and tailored tutorial that Daniella and her siblings enjoy. Parents are apparently between a rock and a hard place: either they cough up the required online learning fee and add-on (expenses they incur at home to get the class running smoothly) or just hope against hope.
For private schools, many of them already notorious for poor teachers’ pay, irregular payment of salaries, it might be time to pack up, reinvent themselves, or pray for a miracle.
According to a 2019 report of the National Bureau of Statistics, 40.1 per cent of the population in Nigeria is classified as poor and a United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) report disclosed that 10.5 million of the country’s children aged between five and 14 are not in school as only 61 per cent of six to 11-year-olds regularly attend primary school.
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