In a move that is considered good for educating teeming youth population in Nigeria, help them fight poverty and deepen democracy, the federal government reiterated that federal charging tuition fees by federal universities is condemnable and illegal. Consequently, the government, this week, decided during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting to order the National Universities Commission (NUC) to investigate the situation about payment of tuition fees and report to the council. Speaking after the meeting in Abuja, the Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Onwuka, said it was illegal for any federal university to charge tuition fees. onwuka said the law says that no federal university should charge students tuition fees. However, he said that the federal government cannot determine what happens in universities owned by private concerns and states.
“FEC discussed the issue of school fees in the various universities and noted that as of law, no federal university should charge tuition fees,” he said. “…. some universities now charge fees per course unit and we are going to make sure that we investigate that properly and make it stopped…. university councils and management should be able to fix what fees students should pay that is affordable and acceptable to the students.” And truly, fees charged in universities must be affordable and acceptable to students and, invariably, parents who, in the real sense of the matter, bear the brunt. However, the issue of making university education tuition-free isn’t new.
It’s only now resurfacing mainly because of the fact that this administration, unlike others before it, is genuinely desirous of correcting the wrongs of the previous governments, fight poverty and make life better for the citizens. Of course, like the free public primary and secondary schools, free public higher education provides educational opportunity for all.
Sadly, with tuition costs soaring to dizzying heights at federal, state and private universities, parents and students of continue to witness difficulties in terms of payment of tuition fees, at a time when people need desperately education to assert their right, check menace of corruption and, ultimately, better their socio-economic status. No doubt, the payment of tuition fees has had a devastating impact on educational opportunity. Unable to afford university education, many young people never attend it or drop out along the way.
Several studies have found that the primary reason young people cite for not attending college is its enormous cost. However, in as much as the initiative to stop payment of tuition fees is commendable, government at federal and state levels must take blames for situations that made it necessary for the universities to charge tuition fees. In fact, the necessity to charge tuition fees is largely the results of inadequate funding of university education and or severe reductions in education funding in general.
Indeed, there is considerable question as to whether public universities are still public institutions, for most of their costs – once covered by government funding – are now met by student tuition. Today, public funding covers only about 30 per cent while students pick up the remaining 70 per cent.
This development hurts not only students, but the entire educational process. Anxious to maintain or expand operations, despite declining levels of government funding, university administrators yearly introduce new costs and add to the already existing burden of students and parents. This situation, regrettably, leads to many compromises on the part of students and their parents in order to meet challenges of payment, causing students’ morale and the quality of education to plummet. Essentially, university administrators, faced with declining income, are increasingly inclined to introduce all manner of fees.
Therefore, the Buhariled administration must be appreciated for its efforts to stop payment of tuition and other illegal fees in universities. This development, prayerfully, would at the least restore educational opportunity to millions of Nigerians and lift the terrible burden of debt from the shoulders of young people and parents. In addition, by bringing in large numbers of new students into universities, through abrogation of payment of tuition fees, it would reduce the incentive for corrupt and unpatriotic politicians to turn students into powerless, impoverished political thugs. Indeed, a surge of fully-funded students might even provide the Buhari-led administration with the backbone to resist the growing desperation by politicians to recapture power and return the country to its hitherto despicable corruption level.
Prayerfully too, the abrogation of the payment of tuition fees in federalowned universities might encourage state governments and private owners of university to decrease their astronomical tuition. Overall, it should be noted that tuitionfree university will widen education, deepen democracy, facilitate and propel the country’s development and, thus, makes a lot of sense, which explains why the federal government established universities in the first place.
