Parents and guardians of students at the National Institute of Nigerian Languages Demonstration Secondary School (NLDSS) and Nursery/Primary School (NNPS), Aba, Abia State, have called on the State’s Ministry of Education and the Abia State Commissioner for Education to urgently intervene in their alleged extortion by the school management.

The two institutions, which serve as staff schools of the National Institute of Nigerian Languages (NINLAN) and are located along the Obingwa axis of New Umuahia Road, have a combined population of about 2,000 students drawn from staff families and the general public.

Speaking at a press conference in Aba, parents under the aegis of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) accused the NINLAN management of introducing “extortionist fees” and arbitrarily increasing levies by more than 100 percent.

PTA Chairman, Dr. Chidi Emenike, said parents were shocked by the announcement of a massive hike in tuition and boarding fees for the 2025/2026 academic session by the Executive Director of NINLAN, Professor Ogbonna Onuoha. He described the new rates as unrealistic and unsustainable.

According to him, primary school fees were raised from N20,000 to N44,500 per term, while secondary school fees jumped from N35,000 to N65,000. Boarding fees also increased from “100,000 to N140,000, despite falling food prices nationwide.

He added that other levies—such as annual caution fees of N20,000 for secondary students and N10,000 for primary pupils, medical fees of N10,000 and N5,000 per term for secondary and primary pupils respectively, as well as N5,000 each for ICT and examination fees—were unjustified.

“These hikes are unbearable and defeat the very essence of the demonstration schools, which were established to provide affordable education for the children of NINLAN staff and the host community,” Emenike said.

Another PTA member, Barrister Chukwuemeka Nwachukwu, argued that the schools cannot be run like private institutions where decisions are imposed without consultation. He said the PTA was not opposed to the official N65,000 tuition approved by the federal government but rejected the “obnoxious and exploitative levies” introduced by the management.

Nwachukwu appealed to the Federal Ministry of Education, the Abia State Government, the National Assembly, and other relevant authorities to intervene and reverse the increments, warning that many parents might be forced to withdraw their children.

He lamented that parents like him, whose children are in critical examination classes, are trapped by the timing of the hike, as transferring students would affect their eligibility for upcoming external examinations.

Efforts to reach the Public Relations Officer of NINLAN, Chris Nwankwo, were unsuccessful as calls and messages to his phone went unanswered at the time of filing this report. (The Nation)