In the last couple of years, students of the Lagos State University (LASU) have had to contend with increment in tuition fee. But by calling for superior arguments and proposal in order to reduce the fee is, however, a testament to the fact that the state government is not inflexible to change.
Following series of crises that rocked the school, the Lagos State House of Assembly, in 2011, passed a resolution, which led to setting up of a Visitation Panel by the state executive to look into all issues that nearly tore the state-owned institution apart.
In its report, the panel made far-reaching recommendations that could help the government take the school to the next level. Unfortunately, in the implementation of the panel’s report, the government carefully selected those recommendations that favoured it alone.
For instance, in Section 4, Term of Reference (iii), and Section 4.0.2 paragraph (g), where the panel recommended that there should be an “increase in the budgetary allocation to the university, using the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) benchmark of a minimum of 25 per cent of annual budget of the state to be expended on education”.
Given the social status of the panel members, the “outrageous fee” we are asked to pay could be afforded in multiple folds by these people. None of them belongs to the so-called middle class; their children are studying in world top universities. Meanwhile, LASU is a school for the average man’s children.
The law setting up LASU stipulates in Section 3 (f) that the school must “provide access for citizens of the state in particular to higher education regardless of social origin or income”. It is suffice to say that the law, in effect, states that LASU must be a school for all manners of people, without prejudice to social status or economic income.
With the increasing population of Lagos, we have more than six million prospective undergraduates every year, even when the tertiary institutions cannot accommodate more than 700, 000 students. LASU is out of the reach of the people because it is not affordable for the poor.
I want to consider everything that was summed up before they arrived at N193,750, N223,750, N248, 750 and N348,750 for students of Arts and Education, Social and Management Sciences, Law and College of Medicine respectively.
Going by the breakdown, the fees cannot be justified. For instance, Teaching Practice, which students of the in Faculty of Education will undergo, is fixed for N15,000. This is a service to be rendered by students to public secondary schools in Lagos. It is just like house job which medical students undergo after their training. They are paid during the period. This same thing should apply to students taking Teaching Practice; they meant to be paid for rendering the service to the state. But government says the students should pay it.
The University of Helsinki in Finland is ranked first in the country and 76th in the world; yet it is tuition-free for student. Maybe the state government wants to tell us it is subsidising education of students in LASU with N 700,000.
If a private university can charge N450,000 to include feeding and accommodation for a year, then LASU is expensive at N350, 000 tuition fee without benefit of accommodation and feeding. However, LASU is not a private institution. It is a public facility that is meant to serve the people and not to be profit-making. Therefore, the fee hike is unjustitiable.
On enrolment trend, before now, LASU used to be a university of first choice. At present, the reverse is the case. The enrolment trend has dropped drastically from 4,570 in 2006 to 1,416 students in 2014.
In 2013/14 enrolment list, only one student applied to study Physical Education. The same thing goes for French, Fisheries and Aquatic Biology and Physics, which had less than three students applying. This trend can reduce students’ population in the school from 24,000 to 6,000 next session.
From the above analogy, the government will pay dearly for it. Resources that can be used to effectively train 4,500 students are used to train 1,000 students. As studentship drops, it doubles the cost incurred per student. Assuming the government spends N700,000 on 2,000 students, the cost will increase to N1.4 million, if the number of students drops to 1,000. Whereas, the school is entitled to 5,000 students from National Universities Commission (NUC) quota.
Abraham Lincoln said: “If you run away from responsibility, you will be held responsible.” For Lagos not to be held responsible for impending illiteracy, the government must stand up to the responsibility of making LASU affordable for Lagosians. With the outrageous fee, dreams of thousands of youths have been shattered. One day, these youths would ask for their rights; so Lagos State must begin to invest heavily in security system.
The Students’ Union as the representative of the students, wants the progress of this great citadel of learning. But we say “no to fee increment” because Lagos is the third largest city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa; and the sixth emerging mega city in the world. With this, it is richer than many African countries.
Mr. Bode Augusto, the Pro-chancellor, said: “The increment is not enough to pay salaries for three months because LASU needs N900,000,000 a month to survive.” Also, when Dr Obafemi Hamzat, Commissioner for Works, was on campus to inspect on-going projects, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof John Obafunwa, noted: “The infrastructural development in LASU has nothing to do with the fee hike.”
Now, why the fee hike?
Wilfred Pareto famously noted that a change that makes at least one individual better off and makes no individual worse off, is an improvement in social welfare. Making LASU a school for the rich must not deprive the poor access to higher education. To this maxim, we submit.
Nurudeen is the Students’ Union president-elect, LASU
