While the Vice-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Bamitale Omole
explained that it was necessary for the
institution to increase fee, the Students Union
said no "pragmatic" management would do that.
OAU recently increased the charges of its newly
admitted students from N37,150 and N42,150 to
N 82,400, N92,700 and N95,700 (acceptance fee
inclusive), depending on faculties.
The charges of old students of the institution
was also increased from N5,300, N7,800, N10,
300 and N12,800 per session to N19,700, N30,700
and N33,700 for different faculties respectively.
The VC, who spoke on Tuesday in a press
conference at Ile-Ife, described the fee currently
paid by the students as ridiculous.
Omole said, "this Press Conference which,
specifically is being held to brief the general
public on the various developments in regard to
the upward review of students’ charges in our
University and why the review has become
inevitable. This Press Conference is also to
correct some misinformation, misrepresentation
of facts as well as fallacious manipulation of
figures which our students released to the
general public during their recent protest with a
view to blackmail the University Administration
and obfuscate the real issues at hand. It is
pertinent to say that before this review, the
charges being paid by the students of our
University were not only the lowest in the
entire Nigerian University system for past ten
years but also the most ridiculous in the entire
tertiary educational system in Africa.
"The following reasons have made it imperative
for the new regime of charges to be introduced:
the cost of providing education has risen
worldwide; inflation has eaten deep into the
allocation to the university from the
government and therefore makes the current
charges paid by students unsustainable; online
registration/verification of student data/
information/certificates, which is cost intensive,
has been introduced to cut down on the wastage
of resources and the time students use to queue
endlessly for verification in their different
Faculties and also need to have resources to
purchase chemicals, equipment, consumables,
current books, periodicals, journals and Internet
facilities so that our students will be well
trained and make employable in the intellectual
market of the 21st century which has become
very competitive."
The VC insisted that the increase was necessary
for the provision quality and competitive
education, adding that Students Education Relief
Committee has been set up to attend to poor
but brilliant students.
He noted that meetings were held with some
representatives of Students Union and
stakeholders on the increment, but said their
position was "ludicrous".
The VC noted that 99 per cent of parents have
paid.
But OAU Students Union in a statement by its
President and Public Relations Officer, Ibikunle
Isaac and Bamidele oludare faulted the claims of
the management for increment.
The statement read in part, "The University
management has said that they understand that
some students cannot pay and they have set up
a relief committee of the senate to look into
this. They said such relief would be open to
indigent but brillant students. To this our
questions are; what is the criteria? If its CGPA,
what is the minimum CPGA? What of the
Freshers? Is it Jamb result or post-utme that
will be used? How do they intend to cater for
the 80% of Students that are poor considering
the rate of poverty in the country.
"How do they expect indigents to get the
required CPGA in an environment of academic
victimization and strangulation.
Most
departments hardly produce second class
students. Some have not even produced first
class since the several years back. While the
management intends justifying their position on
the ground that ours is the cheapest fee in the
world, we are obliged to ask that which
pragamatic and compassionate management in
the world would increase fees by about 400%
without considering the porous economic
situation of the concerned public, epecially a
country like Nigeria where minimum wage is
N18,000 and about 80% of whom live below $1 a
day?"
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