THE RISING COST OF EDUCATION AND IT’S IMPLICATIONS ON THE YOUTH
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This section provides an in-depth literature review on influence of rising costs in education on students’ participation in public secondary school education in Ungogo L.G.A. It has been divided into the rationale of investing in education. Rising cost of education affecting students’ participation in secondary school education; school lunch program, parent teachers association Levies, school uniform, opportunity costs and summary of literature review.
2.2 Rationale of investing in secondary school education
Provision of quality secondary education is a critical tool for generating opportunities for social economic growth (World Bank, 2005). Many explanations that research has shown why governments and in particular people invest in education. World Bank report of 2010 in reference to economic return to investment in education says that individuals are willing to take more years of schooling partly because they can earn more and get better jobs on average with more education. For many more schooling can also be a source of social mobility. It further indicated that nations and regions interested in raising the average level of schooling in their population because they think by doing so this will improve productivity, rise of the quality of jobs in the economy, and increase economic growth (GOK 2010).
According to Newsman (2004), secondary education is important in that it utilises the output from primary education and prepare individual for higher vocational education or to train directly into a professional. According to Williamson (1999) education prepare individual for future life. From a societal point of view education is a vehicle for development without which poverty prevails in the country. Therefore, secondary education plays a vital role in meeting this obligation. Nigeria Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (2006) identifies secondary education as a vital link between basic education, world of work and for the training. Therefore, importance of secondary education in promotion of socioeconomic development demands that, all necessary resources must be provided to ensure access and successful completion of secondary education in order to tap talents, promote equality of education opportunities, empowering social mobility out of poverty.
2.3 Rising costs of education in public secondary schools
Rising cost are indirect costs of education incurred by parents/guardians besides the direct costs of education as indicated in the fees structure approved by the government through the Ministry of Education. In this study rising cost will include school meals, Parents Teachers Association (PTA) levies, cost of school uniform and opportunity costs which is not measured by actually monetary expenditure but the alternative opportunity foregone when scarce resources are invested in education.
2.3.1 Effects of school meal charges on students’ participation secondary education
Lunch is one of the school meals provided to a child or a young person during the school break. School feeding programs are premised on the expectation thatserving food at school may increase enrolment and daily attendance of students. The school feeding program are hypothesised to alter the school decision for families that would otherwise never send their children to school (Aldelman, Behrman, Lary and Menon 2001).According to UNICEF (2010), the school feeding program has helped more students being retained in school that could not afford to pay for school lunch program and ended up dropping out of school.
According to studies commissioned by Indian government planning commission in 2000 to compare the trend of enrolment and attendance in period before and after midday meal program was implemented in selected states, the results showed success of the program in raising enrolment and attendance rates. Afridi (2007) examined the feeding programme effects on enrolment and attendance of school in Madhya Pradesh, India where out of the 74 schools surveyed the attendance was found to have increased by10.5% in schools which implemented the feeding programme. Therefore provision of school meal increases participation. This also implies that where meals are not provided and parents cannot afford to pay for it children opt to stay at home decreasing
participation rate.
Ahmed (2004) noted that after the government of Bangladesh began a school feeding program by the World Food Program (WFP) in chronically food insecure communities, a year after inception enrolment increased by 14.2% while mean attendance per student increased by 1.34 school days per month (representing 6% of total days per month).The probability of dropping out of school decreased by 7.5% in school receiving school feeding program intervention. Kazianya, de Waque, and Alderma (2009) found that school feeding program intervention in Burkina Faso had a statistical significant impact on overall enrolment. Schools increased enrolment by 6.2%. A randomised study of pre-school feeding program in Nigeria showed a 30% increase in school participation (Vermeersch and Kremers, 2005). According to Lee and Burkina (2001) provision of food through school feeding program has showed to have impact upon a student decision to remain in school or drop out. They also noted school tend to see more dropouts due to lack of food.
2.3.3 Effects of Parents Teachers Association (PTA) levies on students’ participation in secondary education
Parents Teachers Association is a formal organisation composed of parents and teaching staffs that is intended to facilitate parental participation in school. Parent teachers association levies are financial contribution by parent relating to cost of education agreed upon by parents/guardians during an Annual General Meeting. These levies include cost of remedial classes, motivation fee, salaries of PTA teachers, and infrastructure fund among others.
According to United States’ National Parents Teachers Association’s mission and purpose statement, the PTA seek to promote welfare of the child at home, in the school and in the community. Nigeria identified the National Parent Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) as one of the strategic partners in ensuring that civil society support government to ensure that all Nigerian children have access to good quality education by 2015through payment of levies to support school projects (Maryam, 2008). This is on realisation that delivery of education has four principal actors; the state as duty bearer, child as the right holder, parent as first educator and the teacher as a professional instructor. Laboke (2000) pointed that there were traditionally other sources of education financing in Ghana and these were being given serious attention for example, parents and guardians are being encouraged to give support to schools through payment of levies to be used to fund specific running cost of schools. Mbugua (2008) says that one of the areas where PTA funds were utilised in Nigeria was in developing school physical facilities. PTA levies are instrumental in provision of physical facilities in school to enable teaching-learning process to take place (Verspoor, 2008).
2.3.4 Effects of school uniform charges on students’ participation in secondary education
School uniform is a set of standardised clothes worn primarily for an educational institution. They are common in primary and secondary schools. When used they form basis of schools dress code. Hanna, 2012 in writing about school uniform cost said that the office of fair trade in United Kingdom wrote to all head teachers asking them to review the arrangements to make for school uniform. She said school choose single supplier or retailer where parents buy school uniform making them unable to buy uniform from cheaper shops. The office recommended that in order to address issue of poverty and barrier it gives to education, then the cost of uniform and school meals must be kept down.
World Bank (2004) has urged that although several countries in sub- Saharan Africa have eliminated school fees, significant costs remain including cost of providing uniform for a child, students are less likely to be sent away from school for failure to wear school uniform but still students feel stigmatised by failure to wear uniform and may be reprimanded by teachers. In Uganda Stasavage, 2005 and in Ethiopia World Bank, 2005 parent who could not afford to buy uniform and textbook retained their children home thus affecting participation. In Nigeria it is a policy that students should be school uniform. Some families are forced to withdraw their children from school due to lack of school uniform. This has mainly, affected people from poor backgrounds (World Bank, 2004) Uniform makes all students to be equal, those without feel inferior and discriminated from others. This affects their participation in school and some opt to drop out (GOK, 2004), Kremer and Ngatia (2008) evaluated a random lottery that gives uniform to students in Busia district, Nigeria. They found that there were improvement in attendance and performance for student who received school uniform.
2.3.5 Influence of related opportunity costs on students’ participation in secondary school education.
Opportunity costs refer to alternative activities a student is engaged in at the expense of education. If opportunity costs of sending a child to school are high, demand for education at household level will be lower. Children involved in child labour do not attend formal classes frequently as organized work prevents many from benefiting from education. Some poor families keep children at home so that they can generate additional income to sustain the livelihood of those families. Craft (2002) in his study of southern Malawi indicates that children combine household and agricultural duties with schooling. The study indicated that forms of child labour create pressure on a Childs time and these children have erratic school attendance or increased instances of lateness. Guarlello, Lyon and Rosai (2005) said in their study carried out in five different countries that agricultural work is often seasonal which clashes with school timetables, leading to seasonal withdrawal from school. Though these withdrawals are temporary research suggests that they may lead to permanent withdrawal from school. According to UNICEF report (2004) Households in 25 Sub-Saharan countries indicated that 31% of children aged between 5 and 14 were engaged in child labour in order to supplement family income so that they could afford to meet the rising cost of education. The survey reveals that 788,000 children of school going age were working children involved in labour did not attend formal classes frequently.
According to UNESCO (2001) child labour has become crucial for family survival. This is because high poverty levels of parents and rising cost of education must be met by the child, parents views the benefits of education as for fetched and choose to preoccupy their children as casual labour where immediate income is guaranteed.
According to Survey conducted by Pradhan and Sign (2006) in rural India, the major reason for non-enrolment is parent’s perception of economic opportunities for children and quality of education, as most important reason explaining drop out accounting for 51% of non-enrolment. In Ghana, government funding covers part of the cost of education, senior secondary education depends heavily on cost sharing as a policy option to supplement public finance. Such policies are damaging to the poor households and many cases are reported where demand for education are influenced by the anticipated cost among poor households. For them education is one of the many options of investment. People calculate the loss and benefit and decide where to direct their resources. Therefore high educational cost can result to students’ non-enrolment and dropping out (Boyle et al 2000). In addition the more education provision depends on household financial commitment the more the quality of education the student can receive is affected by their parents’ ability to bear the cost.
According to ElimuYetu coalition (2004), many parents withdraw their children from school to supplement family income and production mainly between the age of 13 and 15 years due to high poverty. Often children leave school to contribute to family income by engaging in housework, on the family business or by working for wages.
Due to high level of poverty in Nigeria, children are employed as house girls, coffee, pickers and hawkers so as to complement family income. Therefore if opportunity costs of sending children to school are high demand for education at the household level will be lower and children involved in child labour do not attend classes frequently. This affects participation rate.
2.5 Summary of literature review
Secondary education plays a vital link between basic education and World of Work and
Training (KIPPRA, 2006). Therefore all necessary resources must be provided to ensure access and successful completion of secondary education. The Government of Nigeria introduced Free Day Secondary Education to ensure that all students access secondary education. However there are rising costs of education that the government does not cater for in FDSE. These costs are borne by households. They include cost of school meals, PTA levies, for example infrastructure development, cost of school uniform and opportunity cost which is not reflected in monetary term but foregone opportunities by the student when in school. These costs have continued to hinder students’ participation since households are required to meet them.
From the literature review, rising costs of education are major concern in all public secondary schools since majority of poor households cannot afford to meet them hence affecting students’ participation. Therefore there exists a gap on influence of rising costs of education on students’ participation in public secondary schools education in Ungogo L.G.A, Nigeria. This is even after introduction of FDSE by the government in 2008.
2.6 Theoretical framework
The study will be anchored on Education Production Function (EPF) model as advocated by Coleman (1966) According to the model; academic achievement in education process is seen as a function of many variables known as input i.e.
A=f(T, B, E, L, F, P...)
Where: A= Academic achievement
T=Teacher pupil ratio
B= Textbooks
E=Equipment
L=School age abilities
F= family background
P= peer group character and so on
Using this model, education process is seen as a production process where many inputs are expensed in a given proportion to produce good results (output). Therefore the quality of the output will be determined by level of input provided and how well they will be combined. The relation between input and output from education system is referred to as production function
In this study students’ participation in the educational process is a function of the rising costs and hence is the inputs. In this study rising costs in education ranges from PTA levies, lunch expenses, policy on use of uniform, and foregone earnings. Rising costs of education hinder learners from participating in education. Those students who drop out due to the rising costs influence the output. Therefore the model is appropriate for the study of impact of rising costs’ in education on students’ participation in public secondary schools in Ungogo L.G.A.
2.7 Conceptual framework
Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework
Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework of the influence of rising costs in education on students’ participation in public secondary school in Ungogo L.G.A
Independent variables Dependent Variables
Orodho (2005) defines conceptual framework as a model representation, where a researcher represent the relationship between variables in the study and depicts them diagrammatically. Figure2.1 shows relationship between independent and dependent variables. Rising costs are costs which are not seen on ministry of education gazetted fees guideline, they are independent variables. The independent variables will determine the effectiveness of teaching/learning process. Effective teaching learning process in turn affects students’ participation. Inability to pay for rising costs of education will affect dependent variables, access, transition, repetition, dropout completion and quality of education. These attributes therefore affect students’ participation in secondary education. If their interaction is health the output should be good and vice versa.