New Telegraph

Mass Withdrawals Hit Private Schools Over 50% Tuition Fee Hike

High rate of inflation, exorbitant electricity bills, high cost of operations, high energy costs, school infrastructure and maintenance, among others have forced many private schools nationwide to jerk up their tuition fees between 30 and 50 per cent on resumption this week, thereby fuelling complaints from parents confronted with hardships and rising cost of living.

An investigation conducted by New Telegraph in selected private schools, discovered that several schools have increased their tuition fees for pupils resuming for the second term session to the disappointment of parents. Indeed, the exorbitant increase in fees cut across private schools nationwide.

However, it varies from one school to another even though it hovers between 30 per cent and 50 per cent hike for returning students and higher for new intakes.

A visit to some private schools by New Telegraph correspondent in Lagos and beyond this week to assess situations on resumption date noticed unusual presence of parents in schools as they complained bitterly over the hike. Some sought urgent intervention of government.

Some parents who spoke to New Telegraph lamented over the tuition fees increase given the state of the economy and its impact on cost of goods and services; lack of jobs and paucity of funds, especially after the Yuletide festivities.

To demonstrate his case, an affected parent had shown the correspondent a slip notice from his son’s school. The pupil, who is in Primary 2 attends a college on Herbert Macaulay Street, Ebute Metta, Lagos.

As seen by the correspondent, the breakdown reads: Tuition fees (N107,000); Assessment and Reports (N15,000); Applied digital skills and code academy (N10,000). Total – N132,000 and PTA levy of N5,000.

He said: “I cannot afford this bill as tuition fee for my little son; where am I going to see this huge amount to pay as this is beyond my monthly salary and I still have others in another school.

I will rather go and start searching for another school that has lesser school tuition fee. There is no money to pay such an exorbitant fee in this hardship.”

Similarly, Hajia Zeheera Balogun while explaining her own ordeal in her two children’s school at Eleyele Road Ibadan, Oyo State, revealed that she got slip notice of over N600,000 to pay on December 6, 2025.

According to her, she even pleaded with the school’s management if she can made part payments, but she said she was told to pay between 80 per cent or 90 per cent of the sum before her two children will be allowed to resume fully for the new term session.

Hajia Balogun said: “The private schools are just increasing schools fees outrageous every term without pitying the parents of their students and considering hardships in the economy this period.

We should be giving considerations because we are just entering the New Year after celebrating Christmas in the country.

So it’s not easy for every one of us in this country nowadays. We are struggling and facing hard times in our standard of living.”

Speaking on behalf of private school owners, Dr Alabi Oduntan, Proprietor of Successvile College in Alimosho, Lagos, defended the newly imposed tuition fees by private school owners in the country, lamenting that running schools nowadays is not a child’s play because of the maintenance and cost of operations which are causing many school owners to adjust their tuition fees upwards amid high inflation rate and costs of energy in the country.

Oduntan stated that parents of these students complaining should know that aside some of them running it as business, they too are paying enormous bills to other agencies of government as taxes to remain in the business.

According to him, “School owners fully understand their plights about the economic situation in the country.

But they too are also paying school fees for their own children elsewhere in the varsities and are also parents like them too.

But all these school fees are sacrosanct and apt if not, our schools will go down and we won’t remain in business because, truly, the bad economy is biting us too in all ramifications.”

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