INTERVIEW: Private Schools Now Survive On Bank Loans – NAPPS

Chief Mrs. Ruth Agboola is the chairperson of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Federal Capital Territory(FCT) chapter. She spoke with THE WHISTLER on the plight of private school owners in the FCT, with the current situation of the economy in the country and the need for government intervention.

Excerpt…

How Are Private Schools Faring With The Current Situation Of The Economy In The Country?

Before what we have now, private schools used to thrive very well in most places; moderate in other areas where we don’t have a high population of students or where the economic status of the parents is low like the suburbs. But now, with the present trend in the economy, things have turned awry for school owners. They are finding it difficult to cope. Even where the school charges high school fees, the number of pupils there have reduced drastically because in some cases parents cannot cope. Also, the demography in Abuja has changed so much that many schools are now in areas where there are commercial houses, not residential houses. Many houses within the metropolis have now become commercial establishments. They are no longer being used for the purpose they are meant for. That definitely affected the movement of people from the city into the suburbs. So for schools in the metropolis to even have a reasonable number of children, they have to make use of school buses extensively. For the suburbs where the populations are drifting to, the income of the parents in that area is low. These are the trends that have emerged in the FCT.

So How Are School Owners Surviving?

For the school owners to survive in the present situation, they have to rely on Bank Loans with high interest rates of between 29 to 30 per cent. This has affected our business in an adverse way. There are some schools that have to close down. You go to schools in the metropolis and you only get a few pupils in classes. in some cases, only 5, 10 students. When you look at their WAEC registration, you will be shocked that the number is low compared to the structure on ground. So it has become difficult for these school owners to maintain the structure, pay salary, run the school buses and so many other things. Even when these loans are gotten, they are not easily repaid. This has caused some of the schools to close down.

Is This Due To The Current Removal Of The Fuel Subsidy?

Even before the removal of fuel subsidy, some schools have been running at a loss. Those who are not running at loss are just managing to survive. If the situation had been good, they wouldn’t have opted to take out a loan. I don’t think that there is any school worth its salt that can run without getting a bank loan. But with the subsidy removal, it has tripled and multiplied our financial situation in a down turn manner. This has led to parents withdrawing their children from the private schools and taking them to public schools because the subsidy removal affected them as well. Government has not increased civil servants’ salaries. Since there is no increase in salary, nothing has trickled down to traders. There is a high cost of foodstuff because of the high cost of transporting the food from the rural area to town due to the subsidy removal. So if a parent cannot adequately feed the children, he or she doesn’t think that their children should remain in private school. So some have taken their children to public school because they find it difficult to pay for the school fees which they have been paying before.
The fuel subsidy removal has also occasioned high prices in vehicle parts and fueling school buses. This has made it difficult for some schools to keep on running school buses. In fact some schools canceled the running of school buses entirely while some that had three or four buses had drastically reduced it to one or two and you know what that means, some drivers are being laid off.

The buses are either not used or sold at ridiculous prices so that the school can survive. The cost of spare parts has skyrocketed and the mechanics are also there adding their own problem. Their charges have increased due to the fact that most of their dealings with us are not truthful. It has been a double age harmer for us. Then this economy downtown has also affected the laying off of some teachers in schools. When schools are closed down, teachers are definitely thrown into the employment market. Some schools now had to find a way of using teachers for different tasks. Aside from being a class teacher, you might be asked to do some other things that would have required employing other personnel.

Is This Multi-tasking Of Teachers Affecting The Quality Of Education?

I don’t think so because the teaching aspect is different from other tasks given. It is just a way of multi-tasking.

What Other Challenges Are The Schools Facing?

We are also facing double taxation. We are being taxed by the area council, federal government agencies like Federal Inland Revenue, FCT Land Revenue and Social Insurance. We pay tenement rate, signage, even the buses running, we have to pay for it. We have to pay for advertisements. We have to pay for habitation. These are all for the area councils. Infact, they are even charging in some areas a fee they called, Use of premises. In your own property, you still have to pay for the usage. Now, they also came up with a Radio and Television fee. They come up with many ridiculous charges. Recently, we have been having some of them say that they want to charge us for entertainment. They said that we should pay for doing our End of year party in our school. They call it an entertainment fee. I don’t know when our schools will become an event center.

What Can The Government Do To Alleviate These Challenges?

Our challenges are finance to run the schools that have led us to borrowing from the bank. We expect that the government should come to our aid. We are also teaching Nigerian children. Every child is expected to be taken care of by the government in one way or the other. The government feels that the parents of our students have money to take them to private schools so they should take care of themselves but the public schools cannot accommodate all the children in the country. The number of private schools surpasses the number of public schools. So if the private schools are not existing, how will the government schools accommodate the children? Aside from that, in some rural areas or suburbs, even in the FCT, some do not have government influence. There are no government schools in these areas. So it is the private schools that help. The owners of such schools are not finding it easy because they are low cost schools. They find it difficult to pay the teachers and run the school, build and maintain structures. If such schools can be identified and aided by the government, in terms of giving grants, building infrastructure, providing them with teaching aids and text books, it will help a great deal.
We even have schools of N50 per day. Some of those schools, the government is threatening to pull them down but we are the ones pleading that they rather allow them to improve as it will affect the children and the parents. There is no area council that does not have such schools and they need government’s assistance.