From John Adeleye, Ado-Ekiti
As the new academic year begins in Ekiti State, parents have expressed their frustrations over unprecedented increase in school fees and the cost of textbooks among other sundry expenses.
Some parents who spoke to Kayemo News lamented that in some cases fees have been increased by over 100 percent, while cost of textbooks, school bus have also increased in equal proportion.
One of the parents, Mr Ogunjobi Sunday, a civil servant said that the private school where his children are schooling have raised the fee from N50,000 per term to N80, 000 even when salaries of workers have not been increased.
Mrs Esther Adewale, a market woman at Bisi market Ado Ekiti said that apart from the increase in the fees, textbooks prices have gone up by almost 100 percent.
She added that the fare for school bus that convey the students to and from school have also doubles, saying “I used to pay N20, 000 pert term but now it has increased to N30, 000.
“I am very disturbed about the way everything is going in this country. We are lamenting about poor sales, high cost of transportation, now we are going to be dealing with high cost of fees and textbooks.”
She blamed government for the development, saying that the removal of fuel subsidy was a bad policy that must be revisited.
Mr Abiodun Johnson a taxi driver said that, he is contemplating whether one or two of his children may drop out of school because there is no money to pay the school fees for four children.
“I am a taxi driver and since the removal of subsidy, our patronage has dropped. Before the subsidy I made enough money to cater for my family, but now we can barely eat two times a day. ”
According to the parents, the federal government should reverse the decision on subsidy, adding that, no amount of palliatives could suffice and alleviate the untold hardship being face by people.
End.
