By Josephine Agbonkhese

It was with great delight that I read several media reports on Tuesday, 19th August, 2025, of Imo State banning graduation ceremonies for nursery and Junior Secondary School 3 (JSS 3) students, citing the financial burden the practice places on parents and guardians.

According to the announcement made by the state Commissioner for Education, Prof. Bernard Ikegwuoha, and addressed to parents, guardians, and school proprietors across the state, only Primary 6 and Senior Secondary School 3 (SSS 3) students are allowed to hold graduation ceremonies, in line with Nigeria’s 6-3-3-4education structure.

This restriction is long overdue and should have come a very long time ago from even the Federal Government as an entity so that every school in the country is subjected to it.

While everyone may have been silent about it, the burden of this age-long “unreasonable” practice on parents and guardians is unquantifiable and indescribable.

Even before the current economic hardship with which the majority of Nigerians grapple at the moment, most parents struggled to meet up with school bills; which is even worse right now. Up to even the Third Term’s promotion examination, many households struggle with clearing up their wards’ school fees. Hence, you find schools sending out letters and digital messages, urging them to pay up or have their wards being sent out from school. Surprisingly, amid this school fees drive, you still find the same school management circulating separate messages, informing parents to pay up outrageous sums of money for forthcoming graduation ceremonies ranging from N25,000 per child to N50,000 or even over N100,000 depending on the school’s status.

As if that isn’t depressing enough, most of these schools go as far as choosing aso-ebi (ceremonial uniform fabrics), uniform-coloured ball dresses and suit outfits, as well as expensive graduation robes, compelling parents to spend unnecessarily. Often, parents are also compelled to buy new pairs of shoes and make new (often costly) hairdos for their daughters. For an average family not shopping luxury, this usually gulps no less than N60,000 per child! Only because a child is moving from Kindergaten to Nursery, from Nursery to Primary or maybe from Junior Secondary School to Senior Secondary School! Then a few days before the ceremony, another separate message is circulated to individual parents by class teachers, soliciting their “further” support for the party, to make it a “more successful’ occasion with donations in cash or kind i.e beverages, snacks, cakes or souvenirs.

Yes, every win is worth celebrating, whether big or small, as they are signposts that often lead to bigger wins and also are crucial for maintaining motivation, enhancing mental wellbeing and fostering a positive mindset, but we must sincerely ask ourselves: At what cost?

Every celebration doesn’t have to be a costly activity or ceremony. There are millions of ways to celebrate without bursting wrecking anyone’s personal economy further, in an economy where children cannot even have a nutritious bowl of meal anymore per day. Not to mention the proverbial three-square meal per day which is now luxury for many families.

As we speak, over two million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition in Nigeria—a phenomenon which has become a direct or underlying cause of all deaths of under-five children. By the end of 2025, several reports have projected that an additional one million more children will be affected by the same malnutrition. Already, the country has the highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32 percent of children under five right now. So, why not let parents grapple with the problems of textbooks (which, sadly, gives no room for re-use by one’s younger siblings) and rising school fees since education is a compulsory right? Why not allow them channel scarce resources into stocking up their homes with beverages and other nutritious food items so children can be well fed throughout the holiday?

We all know how costly feeding has amounted to in Nigeria. A sachet of powdered beverage is about N200-250 at the moment. Or should we talk about an 800-gram of powdered milk? Which is now luxury and unaffordable for many households? Or is it the outrageous cost of fruits and vegetables? A whole watermelon is about N2,500 or more. A small-sized apple is about N400 and imagine a parent has to provide for three or more children daily. Everything necessary for healthy feeding and living has almost become unaffordable for the majority of households in the country.

Yet, our schools do not seem to understand parents are struggling just to give their children education.

These said, society should be taught to be more empathetic towards the plights of families amid the growing cost of living. Do your findings: this practice only happens in Nigeria and nowhere else in the world. Imo State has taken the lead. Parents can now breathe some fresh air and heave a huge sigh of relief with unnecessary graduation ceremonies now banned. The Federal Government should take a cue and ensure this becomes a national policy. No school, whether public, private or faith-based, should be allowed to mount this unnecessary burden on households at the end of school sessions.

More conservative activities like praise and worship sessions without the glitz and glamour can be organised on the day of vacation if it isn’t a graduation from Primary and Secondary as already proclaimed by Imo State. Let us save parents and guardians this burden by saving the expenses for bigger and more significant wins.

Josephine Agbonkhese, a writer and journalist, wrote from Lagos.

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