Why does school fees still feel like an emergency?

As a parent, I live by two calendars. The first is the one on my wall, marked with birthdays, work deadlines, and family events. The second lives in my head and never lets me rest. It is the school calendar: term opening dates, fee deadlines, and the quiet countdown to the moment when a child might be sent home for unpaid fees.

In the weeks before schools reopen, many parents I know exist in a state of low-grade panic. WhatsApp messages fly. “How much are you short?” “Do you know anyone lending?” Salaries are checked and rechecked. Savings jars are broken. Some parents sell household items. Others postpone rent or medical visits. This is not rare or dramatic. It is routine.

School opening days tell the same story every term. Children reporting late. Others sent home. Parents standing awkwardly in school offices, promising to pay “by next week.” Borrowing from friends, savings groups, or worse, informal lenders charging punishing interest. All this for an expense we have always known is coming.

Education is not a surprise. School fees are among the most predictable expenses a household will ever face. We know the amounts. We know the dates. We know they repeat every term. And yet, every term feels like an emergency.

This is not because parents are careless. It is because the system is misaligned. Most salaries are paid monthly, while school fees are due in large lump sums, often three times a year. Even among salaried workers, fewer than half report having enough savings to cover three months of expenses. In that context, a sudden demand for a full term’s fees can destabilize an entire household budget.

So parents hustle. Informal borrowing is common. In some urban areas, more than one in three parents report borrowing to pay school fees at least once a year. These loans often come with high interest, social pressure, or both. Alongside the financial strain is the quiet emotional cost: the stress parents carry, the anxiety children absorb, and the strain on relationships at home.

Zoom out, and the costs multiply. Parents lose workdays chasing funds or negotiating deadlines. Debt stacks from term to term. Children miss lessons or exams because fees are incomplete. Teachers and schools spend time managing arrears instead of focusing on learning. Families absorb constant mental and emotional strain. We have normalized a cycle that exhausts households for no good reason.

We are treating a predictable expense as if it were a crisis, and families are paying the price.

The good news is that alternatives are emerging. Some schools are experimenting with more flexible payment schedules. Employers are exploring structured savings plans for education. Financial institutions and fintechs are introducing structured school-fee financing options that allow parents to spread the cost over manageable installments aligned with their income.

When designed responsibly and used carefully, such tools can smooth cash flow and reduce the panic that defines term-opening weeks. Evidence supports this approach. An Opportunity EduFinance report on school-fee loans in Uganda found that households using school-fee loans reported lower rates of student absenteeism (22 percent) compared to households that did not use loans (33 percent). Parents in these households also reported lower financial stress during school-opening periods.

However, financing is not a silver bullet. Any borrowing must be transparent, affordable, and aligned with a household’s capacity to repay. The goal is not to normalize debt for basic education, but to design systems that reflect how families actually earn and manage money.

Ultimately, this conversation should not center on products. It should center on parents.

What parents want is not charity or shortcuts. They want predictability. They want dignity. They want room to plan without begging or borrowing under pressure. They want to focus on their children’s growth, not constant financial firefighting.

Education will always require sacrifice. But it does not have to feel like a recurring crisis. If schools, employers, policymakers, and financial providers align payment structures with income realities, school fees can become what they should have been all along: planned, predictable, and manageable.

That is not an impossible dream. It is a practical one.