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Afew months later – still on shaky ground as to whether COVID-19 is a thing of the past or it will possibly make a comeback – we are still suffering from the aftermath of the pandemic. It is nothing like many have lived to see in their years of life and it goes without a doubt that COVID-19 has brought a lot of controversy and debate from as little as what it is to as big a deal as vaccinations. The often mixed angle is the impact that it has made on the average family and this is because of the rushed context to look at how it has impacted businesses and the economy overall, but what about the average man, woman and even the average family?

One of the atrocities of the COVID-19 pandemic is inflation because every business is trying to recover and make a comeback from the loss that the pandemic brought. Many businesses had to close down and made a loss during that period, and the reality of any business is that the recovery period

overrides the loss period and, therefore, it is uncertain how long it will take many to find their feet. In the same length, many businesses had to lay off employees to stay afloat and small businesses, on the other hand, were struggling to even stay afloat amid many that had to totally shut down.

While many will look at this through economic glasses, the other truth is that these very businesses and layoffs are the livelihoods of many families, and even many parents on a microscope who have children and family members depending on them to live. While another mother was forced to downsize on the amount of groceries bought in the household in order to survive because that business has since been hanging by the thread after COVID-19, another father may be faced with the atrocity of having to take his children out of that model C school because they will no longer be able to afford the school fees and take them to a public school. Not only so, but the helplessness of explaining to a child who has never struggled the need to compromise and accept the new changes, which inactively cripple that parents’ ego as far as their role and responsibility to be a provider is concerned.

Expensive

Schools are institutions that were not an exception to the tragedy of COVID-19 and while in a dream world one would hope that things would be cheaper and less of a burden to give everyone a break from the tough past few years. The world is not so ideal and just like the law of economics works, things are simply much more expensive and so are fees. They are even more expensive because

the standard of living has increased, which means that there is a greater strain for many parents to get their children through school and also the pressure of getting them a decent education.

Government has clearly failed on this account to help, and one of the fundamental reasons for this is that the scholarships meant to help the underprivileged and struggling people are not assisting them, but are rather a hot pipeline for the connected. This leaves those who direly need scholarships to be left at the mercy of parents who are already struggling to make ends meet and this is the unfortunate truth. That many parents are trying their best to get their children educated and to meet the needs of their children – much so those who are at tertiary institutions outside the country and the helplessness in knowing that the failure to send some money now or then is simply a risk of having your child hungry and alone in a foreign country.

Compromises

In this we are propelled to appreciate the efforts and compromises that parents have to make in the best interest of their children and their future even if it is at the compromise of their mental and financial health. Fulfilling one’s duty is admirable, especially in a society where duty has been dismissed and many children continue to struggle even when they have capable parents. This brings to light the need to restructure ways to improve accessibility to education and to subsidise tertiary access. This can be done, firstly, by eradicating the faulty chain management in scholarships and looking to as many innovative ways to help ease the burden of education in tertiary institutions for many families.