 And it's time for our first hot topic. We want to take a look at the hike in fees. Schools have resumed. And the worry is creating for out-of-school children and dropouts. Primary and secondary schools have resumed in Nigeria. And many parents are lamenting the hike in fees. Some private schools have increased fees by 300%. Government schools have also seen an increment in fees. All of which have raised fresh concerns of a dropout and increase in the number of out-of-school children. Nigeria already holds the record of the country with the highest number of out-of-school children of primary school age. Frank, Eliana Technology and Media News Editor at Business Day is my guest for this topic. Good morning to you, Frank. Good morning. It was a pleasure to be on the show. It was a pleasure to have you. Well, Frank, Nigerian households are reported to carry 72% of the total education bill in this country, unlike the counterparts in other parts of the world. And most families who put their children in public schools do that because of the fact that they get to pay lower fees compared to private schools. Now we're having this increase in hikes. What does this pretend? What could this lead to? It's a very interesting situation. At one point, you're looking at a situation that could alienate more Nigerians from the education system. Like you rightly pointed out, Nigeria has the highest number out-of-school children already. And with these hikes that we're looking at, more parents could be forced to... Perhaps we draw children and seek alternatives to educating their children. But on the flip side also, you could also see some parents maybe opting for home schools. Maybe one of the parents stays home and decides to be the teacher at home. So there are different ways people can find education that they're looking for. Yeah, but certainly Nigeria has not yet given the go-ahead for homeschooling. Exactly. I was going to allude to... There are different ways, but then they're not official. And if you're homeschooled, you have a certificate, and we live in a certificate-prone environment. So it is... What's actually interesting for me is that the present administration seemed not to have any policy. We've heard about... I think two broadcasts from the new president, but none of them has been able to articulate any education policy for the country. We've heard him say things around manufacturing. We have heard him say things around there, 3,000 jobs, 1 million jobs, 1 million digital jobs. We've heard him say different other things because there are other sectors like mining. Education doesn't seem to be on the rise at least, which is very, very worrisome. And also, with a lot of question mark to the reform, reforms that the government has put out because without an educated population, it is very difficult to achieve much of the reforms that the president has been put out. And if you're looking for 1 million jobs, you need educated people to fit into those roles. But what we have seen so far are heights in school fees, starting with the tertiary education, the universities that also saw heights. Now we're also seeing that the university schools which are federal colleges have also increased their own school fees. What the question is, what exactly is the plan for education? What exactly is the plan to reduce the number of out-of-school children in our society? And I don't seem to see any direction or any plan in that direction. It's over two months now, but we've had this government. They celebrated a 100-year theater day. In that 100-year celebration, there was no articulation of any educational achievement. Of course, like that's been a bunch of achievements now in other sectors. But education, you would have thought would be the primary focus of any serious government. If you just need your citizens to be educated for you if they're not educated, if you're not building human capital, what exactly are you building? Because you need an educated workforce to drive a sustainable economy. And if you're not looking into that direction, I don't know what you're looking at. And these situations now that we find out where parents are having to choose without going to school or sending their children to school or leave them at home so that they can reduce the pressure that they're feeling from the inflation and the economy or the working economy doesn't all go well at all for the economy itself. Okay, the situation is also happening, it's same for the university. As a matter of fact, I think it's even worse in the university is because students are protesting to unilack, to unigest. And then Asu is saying that government should immediately intervene. However, when you listen to the operators of the schools both from the primary, secondary and the universities, they will tell you that they have no choice because they need to run the schools effectively and because of the prevailing economic situations they need to increase the fees. You know, it all goes down again to for the skills you've covered. I'm not going to blame the school authorities. They are under pressure right now who is high because of who is high and of course diesel is not cheap. So where are they going to get the electricity from? If there's an educational policy, what it does is that it brings together all the factors that will aid the policy to go forward. Things like ensuring that there's electricity to all the universities, whether it's going to come at the subsidized rate at a qualified report to ensure that that pressure keeps them. And also that policy will also look at how do you ensure that transportation is cheaper for students. And imagine something like providing resources for university students for free to take them from their homes to the schools. Things like that. Just easing some of those pressures for parents. So when you now increase what's they called the school fees, they are not so under pressure they get to understand and I've also said that it's not just about announcing it it's also communicating exactly what you want to achieve. It's not about earning money because it looks as if the government just wants to rent sick which is what they have been doing over the years. So it looks as if they are just trying to tax parents for tax parents to do what with the money. That's what the parents wants to know. Are you using the new school fees to maybe pay more structures? Are you using it to improve the quality of education? Are you using it? What exactly are you using it to improve or recruit more teachers into the universities? There needs to be an articulation of what the plan is. So government just has taken an announcement and I said that everywhere first move it and don't expect a new position and that everybody should understand that this is for the time to be paid for. All of those things do not communicate anything. If you want people to flow with you and because you also know that you're going to pressure all of them then what you do is you articulate what the vision is and then come with some incentives. There needs to be an incentive that says, okay, so the school fees now are the University of Lagos 600,000 era from the 40,000 era that it was before. But you guys don't need to pay for transport coming to school. If you're coming to school now there will be maybe one lunch for you on your school or there will be there just has to be something tangible that government gives in return for putting more financial money on parents. That's where we are right now. But you cannot do that unless you have a vision of this is where we want to take the educational system too. So the question again is where does the government want to go with the education system? I haven't heard that and then we have a new education minister what is the person saying? Does the person even have a vision or just camera seeking taking pictures and posing for camera what we need to know is exactly the plan for education in Nigeria and I think starting with Ihai was a wrong step really and if you are starting with what exactly are you going to do but of course the Ihai became inevitable because of the full subsidy announcement. Now those are also some of the things that the new president should have looked at why he was announcing his subsidy approval and say we are removing the subsidy but we are channeling the money into this we are channeling the money into education we are channeling the money into this and this and this articulate them but that was not done it was just a matter of we have to prove this because people are still independent we want to be able to account for the revenue I think you have said anything that people can hold on to too so when you talk about these policies that look like your people making them cry more than they have already been crying then X comes along with it Indeed Frank with what is happening if nothing is done to bring down these hacks these fears that have been increased one begins to wonder the future of education in the country these tuition fees are also rising faster than the wages of parents the wages and the incomes and also the wages of the teachers I think that the other side we should also look at teachers in those private schools that are also hiking their fees are not any higher than what they used to earn before I read the report I saw where one of the teachers said that she earns the $5,000 that payment has not been increased so what you are going to find is that many of them who have to migrate or go look for another job because they are feeling more pressured and they are not earning enough to take home they are not earning enough to take home they are seeing that the school schools are also increasing fees but these funds are not translating to their own welfare because when you increase fees what naturally comes along with it is that there is a lot more work because you want to make parents happy or to keep them coming so you naturally want to add a lot more things to say this is why we are increasing fees so that we can also provide you with some of these services the teachers who are supposed to be the chapters of the services are not earning higher than what they used to earn when the inflation was lower so if you are not going to bring in more responsibilities to them then they have to leave so what we are going to find is that it is the depletion of demand power in some of those schools because the responsibility has increased but because money has also been increased and the salary has not increased alongside with all those responsibilities so we are now going to drop in demand power and of course what we understand is that parents look at it and say it doesn't make sense for me to pay this amount of money but I am not getting the quality service that I need to get because if I am going to increase from $187,000 to $300,000 I would expect that teacher that is now teaching my son or my daughter is a lot more qualified than the one that was feeding money was $187,000 I mean you are charging me for that so I expect a lot more from there so if I look and I come back again and the same person or you have repeated that not that one doesn't even look like the last person so I am going to have the reference of why it is happy if I continue the charade of being a higher student why getting less for what I am paying for so I will look for my child and then for somewhere else to put my child so we are looking at a potential on employment and we are also looking at the potential of schools some schools closing down because the population is not able to sustain the running of those schools that is what we are looking at it is a very bad situation but I said it can only be addressed by a well articulated government policy that doesn't just look at public education but also look at the private institutions as well how can we help them go through this time we have put them to I will always say the government is to be blamed for what has become the Nigerian economy today we are also looking at France public schools are already struggling being overstretched because most parents or many parents will be withdrawing their children from the private schools just as you have said some of these private schools may end up closing down enough so the public schools are also going to be overstretched as they take in more pupils true just to add to that already the quality in the public schools is not as high as it should be if we all listen to our parents tell us how education during their times were very very high you know maybe there is some ban to exaggerate those stories but look at the diminishing quality in the public schools and then coupled with an increasing number of students that have been matched to a low low number of the teachers you know what that is going to become so that's what we are looking at right now the quality dropping much more and then of course the facilities not being able to contain as many people that they are going to recruit the question then becomes again what are the state states themselves also to this also looks like an advantage or an opportunity for them to maybe try to look at their education system to upgrade them they can also attract some of these people that are going to believe in the private schools but you can only take your child to school that you know that when they go there they will be parted and not I'm not like you taking them from fry pan to fire you know so that's what parents are looking at but then of course you're also going to see some parents say why should I put that with any school here in Nigeria why don't I just take them to maybe neighboring countries like Ghana maybe Federal Republic or Togo you know where some semblance of quality education can be obtained and those who also have the money will say you know what I've had enough with Nigeria and Africa and then they will take their children outside Africa of course that will be great great alright but even those ones but even those ones are having but even those ones Frank are having huge challenges because some of them are struggling to find dollars to pay for the school fees of their children those whose children are already schooling outside of Africa so that may not be an option that some parents may want to take at this point in time when they see the stress that some parents are going through to get enough dollars to pay for the school fees you're correct desperate times can't call for desperate names people can look at it and say it's like I'm pointing to this is the last and maybe just take everybody out of the country or like I said you can go to all the African countries like Ghana you can go to Togo you need to go to London or UK have to put your children and in Ghana you probably would not need a lot of effects to transition there you go there and you see these paper school fees it's a choice people are going to make right now and it is not going to be to the advantage of our education system and it will only take a visionary government to stem the tide I don't see that happening yet I don't have faith that it's going to happen because if the president has already given two broadcasts none of them has anything to do with what it's going to do about education then I think it's almost like a hopeless situation but what we're also going to find is that we probably might also find some innovative people who come up with some business ideas around education to say how we support online schools we already had one online university that I think earlier this year we probably might have four schools that will say you know what come let's register your child online but then of course the internet the penetration has to match up with it and then of course you also have issues around adaptations and a lot of destruction from online I remember during the Covid period when our children were asked to study online I don't think what was achieved from that because a lot of children abandoned classes and watching something else online it became a chaotic situation for some parents because they couldn't do what their children were doing at home oh well yes time we're not bottom line parents are under stress right now a lot of stress and the government needs to do something needs to do something urgently at that Frankelia Frankelia technology and media news editor at business day has been my guest on the first hot topic we'll be back for the second hot topic stay with us