The state secondary education board in Akwa Ibom state has hinged the 100% increase in boarding fees on the current economic realities in the country. Last week, some parents of students in Cornelia Connelly College, CCC, Afaha Oku had reached out to Inspiration Fm and expressed displeasure over the increase of boarding fees from 30,000 to 60,000 despite the free and compulsory education mantra being preached by the state government. Speaking exclusively to Inspiration Fm’s education correspondent, UHUOTU OMILABU, executive chairman of the state secondary education board, Mrs. EKAETTE OKON insisted that the decision became necessary owing to how the economy has panned out recently. “The economy is not just what it used to be, on a daily basis there is increment in terms of food and every other thing in the market, we find it difficult to continue running a boarding school with the money that parents and students were paying” “I also want to draw your attention that the same parents that are complaining in our public schools are the same parents that send their children to private boarding schools. In some of these private boarding schools, their charges are about 350,000, 250,000 but here you find the state government pegging the price at 60,000, giving breakfast, lunch and dinner for 13 weeks.” Mrs. EKAETTE further appealed to parents to applaud the efforts of the government in subsizing education in the state instead of complaining, saying that education cannot be totally free. “There is no part of the world that education is totally free, that parents only produce children and send them to government schools and expect government to do everything. It’s not done anywhere in the entire world. Education is capital intensive. “If these children are supposed to pay tuition fee, I am sure that it will not be anything less than a 100,000. Look at simple private nursery and primary school, a child in the crèche will pay up to 60,000 and then in nursery school some of them pay 140,000 and we are talking of secondary school and parents are complaining” The increment in boarding fees cuts across all secondary schools in the state and does not cover for other items like sanitary tools that students are expected to bring along to school.