Fuel subsidy removal is hampering educational sector

THE increase in the price of fuel has worsened the state of students who have to depend daily on transportation to school. It makes life more difficult as most of them depend on their parents for monetary aid, while the parents themselves are grappling with the situation to source for their livelihood daily.

How can such parents get enough money for their children? It’s like standing before a dry tap and waiting for water to fill up miraculously. It’s impossible. Do you know how many parents are planning to withdraw their children from school? It may not be clear now, but it will soon be made known. There will be a huge number of parents withdrawing of students from schools. How disastrous that will be! At a time that Nigerians hope for change and a better life, they are experiencing a policy that ceremonially looks good.

Yes, fuel subsidy removal may be of essence in recovering the economy of Nigeria and reducing incurable debts that deprived Nigeria from growing. But if in the process of treating a wound, one opens another, it doesn’t suffice. We are not changing anything. The president said the loans, borrowed in paying the subsidy, will be used to resuscitate one of the four non-functioning refineries. His plans are good, but does he think of the challenges we are passing through as students? We hardly live the way we did before.

In Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, for example, transport used to be N300 to and fro for students in Ago Iwoye, while those in Ijebu Ode and Oru will spend less than N500. But as the fuel price skyrocketed, it now costs N500 for Ago Iwoye students, totaling N2,500 weekly, while for Oru and Ijebu Ode, students spend N1,000, totalling N5,000 weekly. How will students with struggling parents or relative survive this? Some of them have resorted to trekking miles to the school.

Also, the increase affected the mode of operation in some schools. There are schools that have stopped night reading because there are no funds to fuel the generator. If this should persist, there’s no doubt that Nigeria will soon produce quack graduates in the field of science and technology.

The government should treat the fuel price hike with exigency and proffer solutions, rather than procuring palliatives or insisting on the student loan that’s still at its embryo stage. Government should focus on treating the wound and not covering it up.

Olayioye Paul Bamidele,

paulolayioye@gmail.com

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