By Stephanie Shaakaa
On October 2, 2024, I submitted a petition to the Honourable Minister of Education. It was not written in the language of politics or protest, but in the voice of a parent pushed to the edge by the quiet crisis unfolding in Nigerian homes.The escalating cost of education.
At the heart of that petition were issues many parents whisper about but rarely see addressed. Single-use textbooks designed to expire within one academic year, 9 months. Mandatory purchases of branded uniforms, socks, sandals, and accessories. Compulsory PTA dues imposed without transparency.
Beyond textbooks, the sheer volume of levies imposed by schools has become almost farcical. Parents are confronted with so many charges that one must practically cram and memorise them to keep track, assuming one’s memory is sufficiently retentive. Development levy, technology levy, sports levy, sanitation levy, examination levy, Trust fund levy, graduation levy, PTA levy the list grows longer with each term. What should be a clear and transparent fee structure has turned into an alphabet soup of payments that exhausts both the mind and the pocket. The annoying part is when your ward pays the real school fees but misses any of these levies they are asked to go home. In a country where families are already battling rising food prices and transportation costs, this avalanche of levies transforms education into a monthly financial ambush rather than a structured public good.
Together, these costs have turned education from a ladder of opportunity into a financial weight many families can no longer carry, especially in an economy battered by inflation and shrinking incomes.
For me, the pain was deeply personal. I love books. I believe books are not just tools of learning but archives of memory. I tell my children that the books they read today will one day become treasures, holding not just knowledge but the story of who they were becoming. Yet I found myself burning textbooks not because I disrespected them, but because they were designed to be disposable. Written in, rendered useless, piled endlessly in corners of the home. Knowledge reduced to something perishable.
That was the contradiction I could no longer accept.
This advocacy has not been an easy or symbolic fight. It has been a long and demanding journey that required persistence beyond writing and speaking. In the course of pursuing this cause, I have had the opportunity to engage directly with two Ministers of Education, first the immediate past Minister, Professor Tahir Mamman, and now the current Honourable Minister, Dr. Maruf Alausa. I have also interacted extensively with senior officials and staff of the Federal Ministry of Education, making multiple trips to the Ministry to follow up on petitions, discussions, and policy considerations. Even writing to both the Senate and House Committees on Education.
This was not a momentary outcry but a sustained effort rooted in the conviction that education policy must reflect the lived realities of Nigerian families.
Today, I welcome the Federal Government’s newly unveiled policy framework on reusable textbooks with a deep sense of validation and cautious optimism. The announcement by the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Alausa, and the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaba Sai’d, marks a significant and commendable shift in how Nigeria approaches educational costs and sustainability.
The decision to adopt standardised, durable textbooks designed to last four to six years, and to ban the bundling of disposable workbooks with core textbooks, directly addresses the concerns raised in my petition. This policy recognises what parents have long known, that the annual cycle of forced textbook replacement is neither pedagogically sound nor economically humane.
By allowing textbooks to be reused across academic sessions and shared among siblings, the government has taken a meaningful step toward restoring affordability and dignity to education. The emphasis on structured and substantive revision cycles, rather than cosmetic changes designed to justify new purchases, is particularly encouraging. It acknowledges that learning improves through depth and quality, not through endless repackaging.
Equally important are the additional reforms announced alongside this policy. The introduction of a uniform academic calendar, the streamlining of graduation ceremonies to only terminal classes, and tighter controls on the number of approved textbooks per subject all signal a broader understanding of how hidden costs accumulate and suffocate families.
These are not small changes. They reflect an administration willing to confront practices that have long been normalised but rarely questioned.
I also commend the continued role of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council in strengthening quality assurance. Regulation matters. Left unchecked, even the education sector can become exploitative, particularly when parents have little choice but to comply.
That said, policy is only the first step. Implementation will determine whether this reform becomes a turning point or another well-written document gathering dust. Parents will be watching to see how uniformly these guidelines are enforced across public and private schools, how textbook pricing is monitored, and whether schools comply without quietly shifting costs elsewhere.
There is still work to be done. PTA dues must become transparent and genuinely collaborative, not compulsory levies without accountability. Digital and hybrid learning resources must be explored carefully to avoid replacing one form of exclusion with another. And most importantly, parents must remain part of the conversation, not just recipients of decisions.
This moment matters because it proves something powerful, that citizen advocacy, grounded in reason and empathy, can influence national policy. My petition was never just about my household. It was about millions of Nigerian parents choosing between school fees and basic survival, between preserving books and preserving space, between hope and exhaustion.
I acknowledge the Federal Government for listening. I urge it to continue listening. Education is too important to be governed by silence.
When government listens, trust grows. When trust grows, reform becomes possible. And when education becomes affordable again, Nigeria’s future breathes a little easier.
In an economy where wages have remained largely stagnant while inflation continues to climb, every additional school levy competes directly with food on the table and transport to work.
For low-income and rural families, these costs are not merely inconvenient they are exclusionary. When parents cannot afford repeated purchases of textbooks and the growing list of school levies, children are withdrawn from school, attendance becomes irregular, or learning materials are shared in ways that undermine proper learning. Cost reduction, therefore, is not simply a financial intervention, it is a critical tool for keeping children in classrooms and protecting their fundamental right to education.
The true test of this reform will lie in preventing subtle circumvention through rebranded materials, unofficial
levies, or indirect cost transfers that quietly return the burden to parents.
This moment should also embolden more parents to speak, document their experiences, and engage constructively with public institutions, because responsive governance flourishes where citizens refuse silence and chooses persistence over
resignation.
