by Yemi Adesanya

 

“Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” – 1 Timothy 5 v 8. King James Version says such a person is “worse than an infidel”, but you get the message.

 

However, when @AffiSupaStar put out a number of unpopular opinions on Twitter recently, she was chided as being utterly insensitive, speaking from a place of privilege, and betraying deep contempt for the common folks.

“If you have to ‘look for school fees’ every term, you are living above your means and need to re prioritise”.

 “If my business costs exceed income, the first thing anyone would tell me to do is cut costs, but same advice doesn’t apply to family?”

 “They either live cheaper, work more or kid goes to cheaper school, but scurrying around for fees every term to me is irresponsible”

 

Providing for one’s household is full-time work for most people, especially in Nigeria where families pay to provide most of their own needs – education, power, health, security. However, Nigerians cannot be said to be lazy by any stretch of imagination.

A 2012/2013 National Bureau of Statistics household survey reported ample diversification of income sources in the 5000 households sampled –  about 23% of urban settlers reported income concurrent from 4 different sources: wages, agriculture, other self-employment, and non-labour sources. Expectedly, wage income is more prevalent in urban areas, with about half of the households reporting wage income, whereas only a quarter of rural households reported same. So despite all the hustle and drudgery, why does it seem like many irresponsibly “scurry around for fees” at the beginning of every school term?

Do you have a child in a private secondary school in Lagos, Nigeria?

How much tuition do you pay per child per term?

Pls vote & RT.

— Yemi Adesanya (@toyosilagos) April 21, 2017

35% of respondents to a recent twitter poll on termly school fees reported paying above N300,000 per term for secondary and primary schools in Lagos; that comes to N900,000 per school year. The poll returned a mean annual school fees of N781,500 for primary and secondary school education. In a country where the average employment income (from the sector with the highest average pay) is N961,738.08, even an average dual-income household is bound to be a little stretched. It is pertinent to note that these income numbers are from 2010, way before the Buhari administration took over the reins of power, and before the recent economic recession that saw thousands of employees laid off while inflation further reduced the reach of the means of many.

 

So what costs can these families cut? What additional work can the parents do to generate some extra cash? Do they simply need to transfer their children to cheaper schools so they don’t irk friends and colleagues for financial assistance or support?  This demoralising story goes a little deeper for many Nigerian parents.

The analogy between organisational restructuring during economic downturns cannot be this simple or exact: while a business can close unprofitable branches, rationalise or reduce staff strength, discontinue unprofitable products or services, a family cannot wilfully reduce in size. Sure they can cut back on luxuries and stick to spending on necessities only, but looking at the average family income scenario above, many find themselves struggling to provide food, shelter, health, and basic education for their children. Which of these essentials would we advise them to cut?

The argument made by many is to move children to cheaper schools, after all, how long would the parents continue in mendicancy? Many Nigerians have had to grapple with the choice between poor quality basic education provided in public schools and the promise of better but more expensive education in private schools.

Public schools in Nigeria are generally plagued with poor administration and monitoring, inadequate funding, obsolete infrastructure, inadequate and low quality manpower, and unstable school calendar due to incessant strikes. Inadequate carrying capacity is also a challenge: In Lagos state, 43% of primary school enrolment is in public schools (about 1.2million children), although of the 11,226 primary schools in the state, only 991 are public schools. In comparison, 1.4million children are enrolled in 10,235 private primary schools in the state.

A recent research which investigated how choices of schools are framed by parental preferences and family characteristics revealed that even poor parents investigate a wide range of sources for a well-informed decision. The general preference for low-cost private schools, in the low income neighbourhoods surveyed, is largely informed by quality of teaching, attention to children, strong school leadership and proximity to home. Even when children are moved between schools, parental dissatisfaction with quality is given as the main reason, not cost.

Given that many parents want better opportunities for their children, many would rather explore additional sources of income or cut down on their own leisure expenses or frivolities, and in fact are already doing so, to send their children to better schools than their own parents could afford, opting for lower quality education would be their very last resort. The motivation behind parenthood is also a deeply emotional one for many. Some would not mind begging, to give their children better chances than they had, therefore calling these tough choices “irresponsible” reeks of lack of empathy, and a middle class disconnect from those living in a different reality.

The economic recession has seen many lose their means of livelihood; many companies have downsized; many government employees are owed months of salaries; a lot of traders have lost a significant portion of their earning powers to unfavourable economic policies. Many parents are simply in situations worse than their worst case scenarios.

In a society plagued with obvious inequality: in 2016 alone, the National Assembly alone spent N115bn on their 469 members-an average of N245m per parliamentarian! There are also those fortunate ones born with silver spoons or whose parents looted significant amounts of the nation’s resources and consequently have better opportunities than the average Joe. Should the working parents simply give up their ambitions of creating better opportunities for their children, (given the contribution of good education to social mobility; is it only the privileged ones that are entitled to the good life?

Then the questions were asked: “But when does it become irresponsible to borrow from people when you can’t afford to pay back?”. Surely you could borrow to close a temporary liquidity gap, but what about those who come begging every term? Wouldn’t you advise the fellow to restructure his life? I guess you could suggest strategies that could help, like considering the likes of Bridge International Academies – a basic school network which prides itself in partnering with “governments, communities, teachers and families to deliver great schools and high quality affordable education to underserved families and children”. (Their termly tuition costs less than N15,000.) However, these are not easy decisions to make for anyone; you should certainly help when you can, but don’t be the insensitive person who makes another parent jump off the Third Mainland Bridge.

However, as unplanned variances happen, like in the case of a father of quintuplet who cried out for support from the government, there are those who refuse to plan their families too-those who deliberately ignorantly have more children than their resources can reasonably comfortably cater for. Just recently, HRH Emir Sanusi made a plea for family planning. The need to plan, to be realistic, and to save for contingencies cannot be overemphasised, especially in a country without social safety net for the poor. As a country, Nigeria also needs to encourage better family planning. A good sustainable way is to pay more attention to educating its people, especially as high maternal educational attainment tends to result in low birth rate.

With all the hurdles and hardship that Nigeria stacks in the way of its citizens, it is a miracle that birth rate is still as high as it is. Perhaps it is some form of consolation and a desire to make life count for something? Whatever the answer, it is clear that if you are a Nigerian parent scurrying through legitimate means to create better opportunities for your children, you have our respect; indeed you are better than a superstar!

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Yemi Adesanya is the first Vice Convener of #TrollCabal. Yemi is an accountant and risk manager who loves reading, writing computer programs, playing Sudoku and working out. She is the inventor of The Game of Giants, and Jungle card games, and the author of Musings of a Tangled Tongue, a collection of poems. She tweets as @toyosilagos.