THE third and final school term for this year starts tomorrow and activities in the city centre over the past week suggests a number of parents will be ready.
A number of retailers changed their shop layouts to have “back to school” items on sale near the till points to act as a reminder for parents to do the needful while also competing for business.
For the parents, miscalculations might see them still sourcing for fees at this late stage of the third term opening and with boarding schools demanding full fees at entry points, a number of kids will miss crucial days while awaiting full settlement of fees.
Loan sharks have also been positioning themselves since the beginning of the month, hoping to attract those parents battling to put the school fees in place ahead of the most difficult terms each year.
Most schools, especially those commonly known as private school, demand all fees for the third term to be paid before schools open.
They also make this demand for examination-sitting classes to force parents to pay given the importance of final exams, especially Form Fours and Form Sixes.
Despite this demand being illegal as per government rules, the idea is to ensure that no one leaves school with outstanding bills.
Even for those parents willing to pay everything before schools open, these schools have come up with all sorts of tricks to force them to settle all fees and levies in foreign currency, specifically the US$.
One of the tricks is to apply a rate that is way higher than the official bank rate. For instance, while the official rate as of Friday was 13.8910 to the US$, the private schools are converting the US$ invoices to the ZiG at a black market rate ranging from 24 to 26 according to parents at the weekend.
Given that this is almost double the official rate, parents are forced to source for the foreign currency elsewhere, including the black market, to raise the US$ and pay the fees. Then there are those fortunate enough to earn the US$ and, thus, have no pressure to look for the currency outside of the formal channels.
As a result of schools making sure that parents fork out US$ cash for school fees, a number of them are taking the money and the schools and keeping it in safes there. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a number of schools being targeted and hit by armed robbers. Most incidents from the past suggest that the robbers always have inside information from school employees.
Schools must therefore ensure that all payments are made at banks and parents only bring proof of payment instead of cash.
Keeping cash in schools endangers lives of students, pupils and staffers depending on the times the informed robbers carry out their raids.