Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos|Feb 27, 2026
Across the globe, education is no longer perceived merely as a social service; it is both a public good and an economic enterprise. Yet, even where private capital participates in educational delivery, one principle remains inviolable: the child must never be punished for the financial incapacity of the parent. In Nigeria, however, a troubling practice persists, a practice in students are sent home, publicly humiliated, compelled to perform menial labour, or excluded from examinations because school fees have not been paid. This practice, often described colloquially as “school drive,” demands urgent moral, legal, and policy reconsideration.
Nigeria’s constitutional architecture provides the first framework for this discussion. Section 18 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) mandates the State to direct its policy towards ensuring equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels. While Chapter II is non-justiciable, it establishes a normative commitment: education is a national priority, not a discretionary privilege. More concretely, the Child Rights Act affirms in Section 15 that every child has the right to free, compulsory and universal basic education, and it places the duty squarely on government to provide it. Crucially, the Act recognises the dignity of the child and prohibits degrading treatment. The public shaming or punitive expulsion of a child for non-payment of fees stands in tension with both the spirit and letter of this law.
Nigeria is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which in Article 28 obliges States Parties to recognise the right of the child to education and to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity. When a pupil is driven from the classroom in the full glare of peers, compelled to sweep compounds as punishment, or barred from sitting for examinations, the question is not merely administrative; it is juridical and ethical. Is such discipline consistent with dignity? The answer, by global standards, is unequivocally negative.
Global best practice in educational administration rejects exclusionary fee enforcement mechanisms. In many jurisdictions, even where private schools operate as commercial ventures, regulatory frameworks prohibit the expulsion of a minor during an academic term solely on grounds of unpaid tuition, particularly where examinations are involved. Courts in several Commonwealth countries have affirmed that children’s rights to education and dignity must outweigh strict contractual enforcement between school proprietors and parents. The contractual obligation to pay fees binds the parent, not the child. To transpose that liability onto the child is to distort both law and justice.
The economic realities of Nigerian schooling are not in dispute. Public schools in many regions suffer infrastructural decay, overcrowding, and insufficient funding. Consequently, mission and private schools have filled a vacuum, often offering superior facilities, smaller class sizes, and enriched curricula. Yet the fact that education has become a significant private investment does not transform it into an ordinary commodity. Education shapes citizenship, human capital, and social stability. It cannot be treated like the purchase of luxury goods where non-payment simply results in withdrawal of service without broader consequences.
Indeed, the practice of sending children home produces cascading harms. First, it disrupts academic continuity. Lost instructional hours accumulate, particularly in examination classes. Second, it exposes minors, sometimes very young children, to physical risk when they are dismissed during school hours without parental knowledge. Third, it inflicts psychological injury. Public humiliation fosters stigma, anxiety, and alienation from learning. Research in educational psychology consistently demonstrates that shame-based disciplinary strategies impair cognitive engagement and long-term academic motivation.
The Nigerian case frequently cited in public discourse of a young girl in Sapele who was sent home over fees and later assisted by philanthropic Nigerians illustrates both the cruelty of the system and the generosity of civil society. Yet charity cannot substitute for structural reform. Individual rescue stories should not normalise systemic injustice.
One must be clear: school proprietors are not villains for demanding payment. Teachers must be paid; infrastructure must be maintained; utilities must be covered. Education requires resources. However, ethical enforcement mechanisms exist. Around the world, institutions employ graduated responses: confidential reminders to parents, structured payment plans, engagement meetings, temporary withholding of report cards (where lawful), or civil recovery proceedings against defaulting guardians. What is uniformly discouraged is the penalisation of the child.
From a jurisprudential perspective, the doctrine of privity of contract is instructive. The contractual agreement to pay fees exists between the school and the parent or guardian. The child is not the contracting party. Punishing a non-party to enforce a contract offends basic legal logic. Moreover, where basic education is compulsory under national policy, exclusion contradicts public interest.
Policy reform in Nigeria should therefore proceed along several lines. First, federal and state ministries of education should enact clear regulatory guidelines prohibiting the mid-term expulsion or humiliation of pupils for fee default, especially at the basic education level. Second, licensing requirements for private schools should include child protection compliance audits aligned with the Child Rights Act and international standards. Third, schools should be encouraged—
, indeed required, to establish stakeholder support networks: alumni associations, parish or community scholarship funds, endowment schemes, and flexible instalment frameworks. Many mission schools, rooted in religious and communal traditions, possess the moral capital to institutionalise solidarity rather than exclusion.
There is also a macroeconomic dimension. When children are intermittently withdrawn from school due to financial shocks, the nation’s human capital index declines. Educational discontinuity feeds dropout rates, early child labour, and long-term inequality. In a society already stratified along economic lines, “school drive” practices deepen class divides by making poverty visibly punishable.
Education policy must balance sustainability with humanity. Financial viability is legitimate; child humiliation is not. Where a parent persistently defaults without engagement, lawful recovery mechanisms are available. What must not exist is the spectacle of a minor standing at the gate while peers proceed to class.
The moral test of any educational system lies not in how it treats the affluent but in how it protects the vulnerable. A nation that aspires to global competitiveness cannot afford practices that undermine the dignity of its youngest citizens. Nigeria has committed, through domestic statute and international treaty, to uphold the right of every child to education and dignity. It is time for regulatory authorities, school proprietors, religious missions, and civil society to align practice with principle.
Thanks for reading
Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Uromi and a Lecturer at CIWA, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
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