KEY POINTS
- Morit International School in Lagos allows parents to pay tuition with plastic waste to help underprivileged families.
- The school is struggling with logistical issues and high costs of recycling, threatening its operations.
- If the school closes, many students may lose access to formal education in an area with high poverty levels.
Mujanatu Musa lives with her three children in a one-room apartment in Ajegunle, a slum in Lagos, Nigeria. The 40-year-old mother relies on her earnings from hairdressing, which amount to about 2,000 naira ($1.30) a day. When business is slow, Musa borrows money from neighbors.
Musa’s children—Abdulrahman, 12, and 9-year-old twins Abdulwaris and Abdulmalik—attend Morit International School.
Plastic for education
The private school allows parents to pay tuition with plastic bottles, a lifeline for families like Musa’s who cannot afford cash payments. “The plastic helps me pay their tuition,” Musa told Al Jazeera.
The family fits within Nigeria’s 63 percent of people living in multidimensional poverty, according to government data. Without the school’s innovative payment program, Musa said her children would not have access to formal education.
According to a report by Ghana Web, many parents in Ajegunle, like Musa, prefer private schools despite the availability of government schools, as public schools in Lagos are often overcrowded. Although government schools are technically free, many charge about 5,000 naira ($3) per student per term for overhead costs.
Morit International School, about 1 kilometer from Musa’s home, was founded by chemistry graduate Patrick Mbamarah in 2010. Initially, tuition was 6,000 naira ($3.66) per term, but many parents couldn’t afford it, leading to the school’s closure in 2012. It reopened in 2014 after Mbamarah introduced the “plastic-for-tuition” initiative. Parents who couldn’t pay in naira could provide polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and sachet water waste for recycling.
Mbamarah, who grew up in Ajegunle and overcame personal struggles with drugs and crime through education, said the initiative serves a dual purpose: helping families pay for education while keeping the environment clean.
“We currently have 158 students: 112 in primary school, including my three children, and 46 in secondary school,” he said. Primary school tuition is now 10,000 naira ($6) per term, and secondary school tuition is 21,000 naira ($13). The cost is equivalent to collecting 100 kilograms of plastic bottles per pupil, Mbamarah explained.
Logistical challenges threaten operations
While the initiative has gained popularity, logistical challenges are threatening the school’s operations. The lack of storage for plastic bottles and the high cost of transporting them to recycling centers have made the initiative difficult to sustain.
“We collect about 500 kilograms of plastic every two weeks, but we could be collecting at least 2,000 kilograms per week,” Mbamarah said. The school works with two recycling companies, but they often delay pickups, forcing parents to take the plastic home.
Mbamarah has had to reduce plastic collection and is struggling to repay loans taken out for rent and staff salaries. He borrowed 300,000 naira ($183) in December 2023 for the primary school’s annual rent and 800,000 naira ($488) for the secondary school’s rent. The school is also understaffed, with only five teachers, including Mbamarah and his wife, instead of the 11 needed for the primary school. The secondary school has seven teachers but needs at least 12.
“A time will come when I won’t be able to pay the rent, and we’ll be asked to leave,” Mbamarah said. “I fear that soon, I won’t be able to run the school.”
A growing crisis for students and teachers
Rhoda Adebayo, a teacher at the primary school, also fears the situation could spiral out of control. When she started two years ago, she taught seven subjects; now, she teaches 13. “It’s stressful, but the passion keeps me going,” she said.
Adebayo, who also grew up in Ajegunle, said her salary is low, but she stays because she believes in the school’s mission. “The school population keeps growing, but the lack of funds is really affecting operations,” she said.
Mbamarah said several nonprofits and government officials have promised assistance but have yet to deliver. Meanwhile, some individuals have made small donations.
Debo Adeniyi, CEO of the nonprofit Centre for Global Solutions and Sustainable Development, praised the initiative, noting its environmental benefits and its role in addressing Nigeria’s education crisis. He urged the school to find more recyclers to help alleviate its storage problems.
For Musa and other parents, the potential closure of the school is alarming. “If this school shuts down, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Musa said, adding that her children, currently in Primary 4 and Primary 2, may join the estimated 10.5 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, according to UNICEF.
