School fees drama a national disaster

THE never-ending drama around the payment or non-payment of school fees in Eswatini has taken a rather interesting turn, with government threatening defaulting parents with legal action. They will be taken straight to court, no questions asked.

If they want to state their side of the story, they will have to do so before a judge or magistrate.

That is if the Ministry of Education and Training has its way.

From a bird’s eye view though, the issue of school fees should fall under the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA). It is clearly a national disaster. It would be an understatement that tuition fees in this kingdom are expensive. For many of us, they are just unaffordable.

Far too many parents and guardians are failing to come up with the thousands of Emalangeni schools claim to need for their operations.

With each passing year, the amounts required increase.

While this happens, God blesses the head teachers with double-storey houses and very expensive cars. Some even marry second wives.

Fees have spiralled out of the control of many a parent or guardian.

Some emaSwati have even ‘fled’ this disaster area, opting to take their children to primary and high schools in South Africa.

GUARDIANS

Among the guardians feeling the heat is government itself.

Yes, the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office which is responsible for the welfare of children, has never found it easy to cough out the cash when schools opened. Even as we speak, it is struggling to raise enough money to forward to all public schools countrywide, as free primary education (FPE) grants.

As a guardian, government has realised that coming up with subsidies for orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) is no walk in the park.

Year in and year out, this particular guardian comes up with excuses for its failure to pay up on time. Usually, it cites the economy, saying it is bad and whatnot. That is the great irony because ordinary parents also have budgets.

They have income and expenditure accounts which they monitor almost on a daily basis. In fact, those who do are the lucky ones because it means they have income in the first place.

THOUSANDS

Thousands of others do not have any income whatsoever. Just like government, they are chronically broke.

When it pleads economic failure, government fails to come up with even a paltry E15 million to distribute among the needy school-goers it is supposed to take care of. Yes, in some circles, that amount is peanuts.

So yes, the NDMA should just take over this issue because, come to think of it, the same ‘person’ who wants to drag parents to court for failure to pay school fees should also be appearing as a respondent.

In fact, this particular guardian should be the first respondent, with the rest of us parents appearing as second, third and up to maybe 23 456th respondent.

Having a summary indictment for all of us would help save stationery.

Separate summonses would require reels of A4 paper, which would make environmentalist frown at the whole process.

The world is going paperless after all. The amounts owed would vary but each parent usually knows the balance of fees for their child, so the summonses would merely state the name of the parent, child and school.

Having government as a first respondent would give the rest of us a chance to eavesdrop on the excuse the DPM’s Office would give to the court, then submit it as our own as well.

If government wins the case or is given a reprieve, we all benefit.