Makinde’s Free Education Policy Has Ended; Principals Now Collecting Money From Parents | Muftau Gbadegesin
On the 29th May, 2019, Governor Seyi Makinde, while delivering his inauguration speech, announced the immediate cancellation of the three thousand naira (N3000) levies imposed on secondary school students across the state by the government of late Abiola Ajimobi.
The decision, according to Makinde, was to restore the free education policy, increase school enrolment and provide succor to low income parents who have struggled to keep their children in schools under the previous administration.
“Effective immediately”, the Governor remarked to the cheers of supporters and party faithfuls “the school fees of N3,000 in state-owned secondary schools hereby abolished. We want enrolments to go up, we want our children off the streets and in the classrooms. We are throwing the school doors wide open. Whoever opens a school door, opens an opportunity. We are opening opportunities for a brighter future”.
In an instant, Makinde’s proclamation swiftly echoed through the curves and contours of the Obafemi Awolowo stadium and landed in several towns and villages with excitement. Many felt the decision was both timely and reflected the mindset of a leader committed to keeping his words on his first day in office. In schools and colleges, teachers cheered as students expressed great joy. Policy experts, educators, school administrators and parents all lauded the policy as a breath of fresh air.
For many low income earners in particular, Makinde’s abrogation of the late Ajimobi’s education policy represented a paradigm shift. Partly because of the prevailing socio-economic reality that had made life excruciatingly tough on them.
In retrospect, the late Abiola Ajimobi’s government had introduced the N3,000 annual education development levy, paid in installments of N1,000 per term as a temporary economic emergency measure intended to “offer financial lifeline for public schools as the nation grapples with economic downturns”. In addition, money accrued from the levies was statutorily managed by the School Governing Boards (SGBs), another initiative of the Ajimobi’s government, to support infrastructure.
In effect, the transparent nature of the policy which integrated the school management, Parent Teachers Association (PTAs) and old students bodies into a cohesive entity enabled its success. Many schools felt the impact of the policy in infrastructure and were able to equally offset the wage bills of adhoc teachers employed under the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) arrangement. Peremptorily, on his first day in office, Governor Makinde scrapped the initiative without batting an eyelid!
As schools struggled with basics: furniture, chalks, registers, chairs and additional workforce, the Makinde’s government, typical of his handling of other issues around education offered several cosmetic solutions to challenges that are deep rooted. Instead of providing sustainable solutions to the issues facing the basic and secondary education in the state, his government only offered temporary relief that has further exposed the system to extortion and exploitation. In close to eight years, the verdict on Makinde’s supposed free education policy has landed with a thud: school principals across the 26 zones in the state are now extorting parents with impunity. Take the current academic session. In the last four weeks, and across the 571 secondary schools in Oyo State, newly admitted students into Junior Secondary School (JSS1) have illegally paid for items such as documentation, for instance. Those entering SS1 have equally suffered similar fate.
For the collection of JSS3 BECE results, students, according to a confidential information obtained by this columnist, were ratified to cough out a certain amount of money only to have it inflated at the point of collection. The SS3 students are equally not left behind in the extortion escapades. Most parents have succumbed to the high-handedness of the principals across the schools. In many cases, the leadership of the PTAs have equally been drafted to offer some level of credibility to the illegality. Still, there are especially poor parents who struggled to reconcile the public posturing of the government that promised free education and the reality of the system that is squeezing them of their hard-earned money.
To understand this dangerous turn of events in the education sector of the state, it helps to consider the perspective of the Principals who are at the heart of this controversy. Under late Abiola Ajimobi, particularly after the School Governing Board (SBG) was founded and the N3,000 levy imposed took effect, schools had legitimate internally generated revenue to either execute projects, or ensure the smooth running of their operations. For many upright administrators, the arrangement offered more than a financial lifeline. Across the state, the benefits of the arrangement, in one estimate, far outweigh the cost. Most parents even became enormously interested in the academic pursuit of their children given their financial contribution to their education.
Indeed, the late Ajimobi himself argued that most parents have abandoned their children’s education to the government, a factor he said contributed significantly to the decline in their performance. The late Ajimobi’s administration also adopted a realistic approach to its policy making. Instead of playing the populist game, the regime took the hard decision amid paucity of fund and stood by it. Without adequate understanding of the challenges, the Makinde’s administration on the first day in office tore the policy into shreds and has been dealing with the fallout ever since.
To be fair to the school Principals, the Makinde’s government has left them between the rock and the hard place. For one thing, no establishment, schools inclusive can run smoothly without proper funding. But what happens when that fund abruptly stops? Necessity, as they used to say, then becomes the mother of invention. This columnist is also aware of the dilemma before the Principals regarding the use of the media to pressure the government.
For the past seven years, the administration of Seyi Makinde has pocketed all the notable media houses and all the vocal voices – with little or no resistance. To embark on a media trial of the governor over his ineptitude may end up being counterproductive. So, for an average school Principal, the problem is more complex than imagined. Still, no amount of excuses justify the illegality in schools. This columnist reckoned that no parents should equally bear the burden of government’s incompetence or school Principals complicity. Till date, the Makinde’s government has stuck to its guns of ‘free education policy’. But free education is not done with mere speech or statement alone. Education is only free when schools are adequately and properly funded.
To be clear, this columnist has written about how Makinde’s cosmetic approach to education backfired as far back as 2021. To have some of the issues raised back then resurface almost six years later is deeply troubling. No doubt, the government has pushed the school and by extension the Principals to the brink, and the only to stay above the waters is to have something to hang on to. The bulk of the problems lie with the state government.
Ultimately, by the time the Makinde’s government eventually bows out of power, it must have left the system far worse than it met it. In 2019, Governor Makinde claimed that the over 400,000 out-of-school children in the state, the highest in southwest, informed his decision to abolish the payment of school levy. In 2026, that number has nearly doubled, according to recent reports which estimated the number to be around 670,000!
Despite the record financial windfall into the state coffers from the Federation account, public schools across Oyo State have only retrogressed in across all metrics and indices. And here lies the tragedy of a government that has so much in resources but invested little in the education of its people.
PLAIN TALK is Muftau Gbadegesin’s commentary on contemporary socio-political Issues affecting Oyo State and beyond. He writes every Saturday and can be reached on X and muftaugbadegesin@gmail.com
