School Fees: How Students Outsmart UNN Security Checks

Following the restriction of students of the University Secondary School, Nsukka, who have not paid their second term school fees from entering the school premises for academic activities, some of the students have devised the means of evading security surveillance of the school.

THE WHISTLER checks show that the entrance of the secondary school is locked every morning and the students are only allowed entrance when they show the pass issued to them by their respective form teachers.

However, while some students who are yet to pay complied and left for home, some ‘fast’ ones usually stayed back looking for opportunities to gain entrance.

“This is not the first time of locking us out of the gate,” according to one of the students who is in JSS 2. “But some of us usually stayed back to try. One day, a professor of the university was passing by and saw us loitering. He set down from his vehicle and asked us the reason. He later made some calls, and shortly we were allowed to enter. We were given three weeks grace to pay the fees. We always think that such professors will be passing by to save students whose school fees are delayed. So we have been staying back anytime we are locked outside because of school fees. My mother sells okpa, and money is hard for us. But she said she must train me to university level.
“But if we didn’t gain entrance, some of us would wait to collect notes from our classmates that have paid. We can miss tests, but not notes they copied.”

The approach of another student, identified as Ugo, is different. “Security men do allow parents who present their children to them with a promise of when they will pay. I do stay to beg some parents to claim that I am his or her child. I have always succeeded. I don’t miss classes because of the fees. My elder sister thought me that method, and it works. We call it ‘borrowing parents’. Some parents do refuse, telling us that they don’t want to lie. But for me, it is a righteous lie. Most of them agree, but I change those I beg so that I won’t be identified as a parent beggar.”

A junior student was heard telling his colleague what to do. He said, “Let your father give you an ATM card. Tell the security men that you will pay through the POS being operated inside the office. Nobody will disturb you. Copy for digits as the passwords because security may ask you questions. Since last week when the school started locking us out, I never miss lessons. I use to tell them that my father gave me his ATM card to pay because he is not in town. They do allow me. They don’t recognise me the next day. If I suspect that one of them will recognise me, I approach a different security man. Or I meet them during rush time.”

It was gathered that the school authorities stipulate that students pay their school fees within three weeks of school resumption. While students of staff members of the university pay around N65, 000 per term, non-staffers’ children pay N72, 000 only. However, the hostel fee of N180, 000 per the term is inclusive. It was formerly N90, 000 only.

A parent, Felix Ozioko, however, faulted the procedure. He said, “This school knows that most parents earn salaries. They should simply allow the students to be attending classes till month end. The January pressure is much. They force us to look for overdraft at the university community bank to settle all these charges.”