As economic recession bits harder in the country, some private school owners in Lagos State have started putting up their schools for sale as they could no longer cope with the high cost of running them.
The President of National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, NAPPS, Lagos State chapter, Alhaji Kamaldeen Akande disclosed this in an exclusive interview with our correspondent, saying apart from the fact that many private schools have closed down though with the hope of resuming operation when economy bounces back, significant numbers of others have sold off their schools in the last six months.
He said if the current poor economic situation which he said many parents also identified for their inability to pay their children’s school fess was not addressed on time; many more private schools would still be forced out productsof business on daily basis. NAPPS, according to him, constitutes about 70 per cent of total number of private school owners in Lagos State.
Akande, who is the Proprietor of Supreme Pillars College, Badagry, lamented that it was unfortunate that the economic situation had equally compelled many school owners who are members of his association to start driving out their students who could not pay their school fees from class and likewise forced some parents to withdraw their children from private to public schools.
He said this development was not the practice before recession, but NAPPS members were forced to do so for fear of being thrown out of business completely.
He explained that the situation was compounded by all kinds of taxes and levies including business premises tax, hackney permit, load and off loading permit, entertainment permit, apart from the annual dues and other charges that government imposed on private schools and made payment compulsory.
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