Concerned parents, teachers’, and education advocates have commended the moves by some state governors to abolish the culture of expensive graduation ceremonies in nursery and primary schools urging it should be replicated in all the states of the Federation.
They described the practice as a ‘ waste of resources and a burden on families, as well as a shift from the provision of quality education to exploitation by the school owners. Speaking with Our Correspondent in Port-Harcourt on the scourge, an educationist, Hon Fineface Akaya, lamented that graduation events, especially at the nursery, primary, and junior secondary school levels, have become commercialized, forcing parents to pay compulsory levies for regalia, hall rentals, souvenirs, photography, and choreography.
“Graduation is supposed to celebrate learning, not lifestyle. Forcing parents into unwarranted debt for ceremonies defeats the essence of education”, Akaya said. He urged the Ministry of Education and State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) to issue clear guidelines, stressing that there should be no compulsory levies and ceremonies below Senior Secondary School (SS 3) Class.
Hon Akaya further called on the Parents’ Teachers’ Associations (PTA) to pass resolutions banning hidden levies and to adopt a cost control mechanism to protect families from exploitation. “Let us abolish the waste but keep the wonder of learning. Everychild deserves recognition without shame or financial pressure” he affirmed.
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Mr. Akaya, while speaking against the growing trend of expensive graduation ceremonies in schools, urged government at all levels to clampdown on schools acting otherwise against government imposed orderbanning such practices in the nursery, primary and junior secondary institutions of learning in the country.
The educationist noted that some children are even excluded when their families cannot afford to pay, while teachers also complained that weeks of rehearsals eat into valuable classroom time. Hon. Akaya, used the opportunity to admonish government at all levels to act fast, and to save parents from the unimaginable financial demands and burdens for posterity.”
Their proposal is to scrap compulsory levies in schools, keep events short and simple on school premises, and make sure no child is left behind. On her part, a parent, Mrs Grace Nkechi however, enjoined fellow parents to stop the habits of promoting expensive graduation ceremonies, by refusing to pay the levies imposed on them by the schools for the celebration.
Mrs Nkechi noted that many parents have run into debt of millions of naira due to a negative jamboree, all in the name of satisfying school heads for unjustifiable reasons. She called on the government to put an end to the increasingly extravagant graduation ceremonies staged in schools, especially in privately owned ones.
