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Firstly, I wish i can really tell Schools how deeply sorry i am that this has affected them. However, you are not the only victims. School owners are like most business owners facing the same challenges right now and almost not been able to find solution. However, asking me to pay 3rd term fees irrespective of what discount you wish to give is like a make up artist telling me to pay her online to make up my face, or a tailor asking me to pay her online to sew my dress. Let’s take this step by step..shall we?
What exactly are the fees I willingly have been paying for?
1. School Materials
2. Classroom learning
3. Bonding with friends at school
4. School discipline and relationship building
5. Teacher and child connection
6. Extra curricula activities
7. Access to school resources eg Library, Science Lab, Art and Music Room, Dinning hall, etc
8. Overhead expenses eg use of internet and generator, electricity, cctv servicing, Cway water, water for cleansing hands etc
9. School feeding
10. Direct cost – Payment to teachers
11. Indirect cost – Payment to non teaching staff
Out of my 11 short list (cos there are more reasons why i pay for school fees) you only come with the sentiment of payment of teachers salaries…. That is the most ridiculous sentiment and there are 150 ways to debunk that excuse of a claim but i will mention a few.
Let us begin
A. It is at this juncture i recognise teachers are gods even while human. Dealing with a child or two is so much hardwork even without combining school work. The mental injury this lockdown is capable of doing by turning parents into automatic online teachers cannot be explained. Do you also realise that parents are not limited to this additional hardwork? Most parents have to work from home to keep earning salaries to maintain their household, was that taken into consideration at all?
B. Someone said a teacher spends 2gb each day to partake in online schooling. Hello? A parent spends 5gb per day PER CHILD to partake in the 14 subjects of one child, so imagine if such parent has 2-4 children not counting the internet cost of working from home with inclusion of the Internet FRUSTRATION in this part of the world and cost of fuelling generator in the case of no light. Tell me, who pays for that?
C. I have just one laptop which i have to shuffle between my daughters. My kids are no more enjoying classroom teaching or teacher and child connection. You are not going to buy books or school materials and start dropping them off house to house, neither are you buying laptops to give to each child, and don’t let us talk about creche and daycare services, would you bill them too for ONLINE CRECHE? So tell me, what exactly i am supposed to pay for if i am to do 90% of the job and cost incurred?
Perhaps you do not know what you have opened our eyes to, let me freely tell you without charging you for this info. I no more need a teacher to teach my child HCF…YouTube will do so with ease and the lessons will stick faster. My child easily remembered her numbers in Chinese just by watching it on YouTube. Scheme of work can now be sourced online. You opened our eyes to online schooling and we are racing faster than your legs can carry, it is gradually looking like we won’t be needing you and instead of cajoling us on how to stay put, you want us to pay for something we can do without your aid?
I am sure this is where we get to ask the favourite question of How then do we pay teachers? That was not the original concern, cos that can be easily addressed in my opinion. If each parent pay his or her child’s class teacher 5-10k monthly, a combination of 15-17 parents would have successfully paid such teacher MORE THAN THE SCHOOL WOULD PAY. How about non-teaching staff? This is where we should ask where are the school’s reserve? Cos while we understand that teachers are still working, non teaching staff are not, are we parents also supposed to bear the burden of non teaching staff as well?
If the school had been keeping it’s reserves well and not trying to maintain a certain lifestyle, they can very well give palliatives to these non teaching staff at these crucial period even if they cannot pay full salaries.
Private schools seem also not to understand that they are under authority. On whose direction are you demanding for 3rd term school fees? If Lagos state or the country’s ministry of education demands a repeat of 3rd term or the full school session, would we pay twice? Because as you wish to begin 3rd term, what happens to government schools that are not online based? Waec has been postponed indefinitely, and you want me to pay for 3rd term fees while we don’t know the Country’s educational direction? Your business strategy manager did not advice you wisely i must confess.
It is so sad that while these schools dish out school fees, they fail to understand that some parents might be on the verge of losing their forms of livelihood due to the effect of lockdown, where should such parents get fees from while just barely trying to keep their heads above water level?
Worthy of note is that my Children’s School has not demanded i pay a dime. But knowing what i know, i am sure when such information reaches my desk, they had better come with a SMART DEFENCE and THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX telling me why they are entitled to the fees rather than the sorry excuse of paying salaries or i lick stick-sweet while reading their sorry letter
I drop my pen. Reactions are welcome.
If you want to defend, please be guided. If you have dangote type of money and very sentimental, please do kindly feel free to pay the school for 2021 session biko.
Thank you
Olufunmi-Edna
(C)2020
