The Real Cost of School Resumption in Nigeria (What Nobody Tells You)

You've probably already sat down with the fee list. Most of us do it the same way, in the evening when the house has finally gone quiet, with a pen and the calculator on your phone, moving figures around until it looks like something you can manage.

Then the shoes don't fit. The school sends a message about a levy nobody mentioned in July. Bus fare has gone up again. And your daughter comes home to announce that everyone in her class is buying the new maths workbook.

By the second week the money's gone and you're sitting there wondering how you got the sums so wrong.

You didn't. The list you were working from was never the full list.

Tuition is only the part they print

Most of us budget for resumption the same way. Look at tuition, add something for books, call that the number. But tuition is just the part the school puts on paper. The rest turns up in bits over the first three weeks, from about six different directions, and never when you're expecting it.

You're not imagining the increase either. BusinessDay surveyed a hundred and forty parents around the country ahead of this September resumption, and more than eight in ten said their child's fees had gone up for the term. Schools are dealing with their own rising costs, diesel, rent, holding on to teachers, and it comes down to you.

Transport is the one catching people out. Some parents this term have reported bus fare on the same route climbing by twenty to thirty thousand naira, and for a few families the moving is now costing nearly as much as the schooling.

Write down the whole number first

Not tuition. Everything. Every naira this child will cost you between now and December.

It isn't a nice figure to look at. But a number you can see is a number you can plan around, and a number that keeps arriving in pieces will keep ambushing you until Christmas.

Here's the full list, split by when the money actually leaves your hand.

Before she walks through the gate

Bought once, used all term

Paid again and again

Add the three groups together, then divide by the number of weeks left in the term. That weekly figure is what this child actually costs. That's the number to build the household budget around, not the tuition.

Where the money can bend

Some of it is fixed. A lot of it isn't.

Uniform is the easiest place to start. Buy one size up and take up the hem. Two sets is usually enough if you wash midweek. And look at last term's shoes properly before you replace them, because a resole costs a fraction of a new pair and most school shoes have another term left in them.

Exercise books are cheaper at the market than at the school shop, and it isn't close. Buy them in bulk now instead of in twos every time they finish.

For textbooks, ask the class teacher which ones will genuinely be opened this term. Not every book on the list gets used. Then ask around for a mother whose child finished that class last year before you buy anything new.

Transport is your biggest lever this term. If the bus fare has jumped, speak to two or three mothers on your route about sharing one driver you all know. Split properly, it takes a serious chunk off.

Packed lunch beats lunch money nearly every time, and you get to know what she actually ate.

And not everything has to be bought this week. The second bag, the extra PE kit, the new flask, all of that can wait until week three when the first round of payments has cleared.

Ask for the payment plan, and ask properly

Plenty of mothers never ask. We assume the answer is no and we'd rather not have the conversation. But in that same survey, more than half the parents whose fees had gone up said their school offered staggered payment.

So it exists. You just have to ask, in writing, and before the deadline rather than after it.

Something like this does the job:

Good morning. I'm writing about first term fees for my daughter in Primary Four. She'll be resuming on the fourteenth. I'd like to request a payment arrangement for this term, half on resumption and the balance by the end of October. I'll keep to those dates. Please let me know if that works and who I should confirm it with. Thank you.

No apology, no long story, and it hands them a specific plan to agree to instead of asking them to work one out for you. Send it this week, not on resumption morning.

What not to cut

When it's tight, cut in the right places.

Not her transport. The cheapest arrangement isn't worth it if you don't know the driver.

Not her food. A hungry child doesn't learn, and she won't tell you she was hungry.

And try not to move her mid-term. If you really do need to change schools, plan it for the December break. Pulling her out in week four costs her more than the fees were saving you.

If the money just isn't there

Some months it isn't there, and no amount of clever budgeting will produce it.

If that's where you are, talk to the school now rather than in week six. A mother who comes forward early with a plan gets treated very differently from one the school has to chase. Ask directly about sibling discounts, staff discounts, scholarship places, hardship arrangements. A lot of schools have something and simply don't advertise it.

Look at your cooperative or your ajo before you look at a loan with heavy interest. Education spending that puts you into an expensive debt cycle will cost your family far more over the year than the fees ever did.

And if it comes down to moving her to a good public school, that isn't a failure. A lot of families are making that decision this term. Her future isn't decided by the crest on her uniform.

One more thing

She doesn't know any of this.

She doesn't know how many evenings you spent moving figures around, or what you quietly went without so the fees could be complete. All she knows is that on the fourteenth her uniform was ironed, her bag was packed, and you got her there.

Give yourself some credit for that.

A note: resumption money doesn't only sit in your account. It sits in your sleep. If this season is weighing on you, please talk to someone about it, whether that's your partner, a friend, or your doctor. You don't have to carry it quietly.