The Nation Newspaper

Tag: FEES

  • Delta Poly students protest high fees

    Delta Poly students protest high fees

    STUDENTS of the Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku, Aniocha South Local Government Area, yesterday fumed at their Higher National Diploma (HND) II project supervisors for allegedly demanding between N20,000 and N50,000 to supervise their projects.

    An HND II student, who spoke in confidence, said one of their supervisors and Head of Department (HOD), demanded N30,000 for each project, besides the initial N5,000 charged each student for approving their projects.

    The student said: “We are five in a group, and each of us has paid N30,000 to the man who owns a business centre where our projects are being typed. This is on the directive of the project supervisor.

    “We have already paid N30,000, but he left an instruction with the business centre typing our projects that it should not start work on them until four persons have completed payments. Now, the other two persons are yet to pay and there is a circular from the Rector’s Office that all projects be completed by June 30.

    “Our anger is that these lecturers are not helping issues. I don’t know if they want us to go and steal to pay them in these hard times; it’s bad they are asking us to pay such huge ‘illegal’ amount. We are tired. This confirms that they want to drag us back while other schools are graduating.”

    A female student, who did not want to be named, said students were being forced to buy textbooks at exorbitant prices, even when such textbooks were irrelevant to their studies.

    She said: “It is only in this institution that you are forced to buy textbooks, even when you have 10 of the same books. They give us assignments that are part of our CA and ask us to submit with the textbooks or the serial number of the textbooks or else we won’t have CA.

    “There is nowhere, apart from this institution, that lecturers are putting price tags on projects. What I know is obtainable in other schools is that the students, on their own, may decide to show appreciation to their project supervisors, if they like. They are not asked to pay a tax.”

    Investigations revealed that the practice has been going on in the institution for a long time, even with the school’s laws that disallow such practices in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

    The Rector Mrs. Edner Morgekwu said she was not aware of the exploitation of the students writing their projects.

    She promised to investigate the allegation, adding that her administration had been fighting corrupt practices since inception.

     

  • ‘Govt should pay WASSCE fees for private schools too’

    ‘Govt should pay WASSCE fees for private schools too’

    The Executive Director, Doregos Private Academy, Ipaja, Mr Tokunbo Doregos has said it is the responsibility of the federal government to pay the West African School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) fees for all SS3 pupils, including those in private schools.

    He said parents are not supposed to pay for any mandatory examination.

    “Are they not citizens? The fact that they are in private school does not mean their parents must pay. It is a general examination that is mandatory. So, I feel the government should pay.  The worst is that every year they increase the fees and we pay annual dues as well,” he said.

    Speaking during the 25th Founder’s day celebration of the school, Doregos said with all the dues private schools have to pay, the school does not compromise on standards.  This culture, he said, has paid off in the performance of the pupils.

    “There are certain rules that the Ministry of Education has put in place for us and we try as much as possible to follow them. One of such is examination malpractice. It is important here that every child writes their own examination. We don’t admit children to write examinations in our school and the law says that we should not admit children in the second year so we don’t and that is what has kept our results in the standard it is now.

    “When you bring in people to write examinations at that level, it is almost as if all what you have worked for is a waste. It is not just about teaching them in class; it involves moral, ethics and these are things that we are not sure a child coming from other schools has; and at SS3 level, you cannot teach that in just six months.  It is something that they have been taught for the six years in the school,” he said.

    Doregos has managed the school for eight years under the supervision of his mother, Mrs Clementina Doregos, who founded the school 25 years ago.  With Mrs Doregos announcing her retirement during the programme, Doregos will now be fully in charge

    He said the school has excelled because of his mother’s passion for education.

    “The person that started the school has passion for education.  She read education; she has taught for many years.  She didn’t come from any other industry to set up a school like most people do and she understands the importance of educating children,” he added.

    On her part, Mrs Doregos said she has decided to take the back seat because of age.

    “No matter how strong you are when you are moving close to 70 years, you will get tired.

    “The age of retirement for a woman is 60, but I am 68. I have done extra eight years of hard work. I made him Executive Director when I was 60 so he could start learning. I know by the time I am 70 he would have mastered what to do in the school. And in a school, you just need good management and teachers,” she said.

    She said the need to build a college arose on January 21, 1990, when it became difficult to get into the federal unity colleges.

    “We actually started Doregos Academy to celebrate the 10th anniversary of St Bernadette Nursery and Primary School. I used the college to celebrate them. We had two Nursery and Primary Schools then and our pupils needed them to get into good secondary schools so we started the school,” she said.

     

  • Lagos defends fees

    The Lagos State Ministry of Education has defended the N10,000 fee charged for screening test into its model colleges and upgraded secondary schools.

    A statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the ministry, Mr Jide Lawal, stated that the fee has not been increased.

    The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to the objections of both the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) to the payment of the sum of ten thousand naira only for the sales of forms for the screening test for admission of primary six pupils into Model Colleges/Upgraded Junior Secondary Schools for the 2015/2016 academic session.

    “We wish to state categorically that the payment of the sum of N10,000 for the screening tests is not a new thing as that has always been the practice for the past years hence one begins to question the motive behind the objections of the two groups.”

    The statement added that computer based test (C.B.T) being introduced for the entrance examination this year is not mandatory for all candidates and did not influence the cost of the examination.

     

  • LASU fees ‘still outrageous’

    Following the 34-60 per cent review of the fees by Lagos State University students barely a month ago, Students’ Union President Nurudeen Yussf  Temilola, in this interview with ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA, claims there is no significant reduction

    WHat is your take on the new review of the tuition?

    As Students Union executive, we don’t speak for ourselves. We speak for the people and whatever the decision our students arrived at is binding on us. Now the students have spoken saying they can’t afford to pay the fees. For instance, a 300-Level Mass Communication student called me on Friday and said paying N113.000 is outrageous to her. If a returning student at the Faculty of Education will pay N151; and you are now telling her to pay nearly N100.000, it simply means there is no significant reduction in the fee.

    Could you put a conservative figure on the number of students that have called you rejecting the reduction?

    This information first came out on Wednesday last week. If not that my phone was bad, I would have shown you (the calls). I have received hundreds of calls from students rejecting the fees. Truth is, many students are calling that they are tired of staying at home. We all want to resume, but this school fee is still high.

    Considering the position paper SU presented to government in April, what are those things you recommended but are not included in the review?

    First, our position was that the tuition should be reduced to N20.000.00 across board since before now, LASU was a tuition free institution. On field trip, we said it should be made discretional to faculties and departments who will organise them. But from what we have now, they have retained field trip for Mass Communication students at N5,000. According to information available to us, field trip is money students in Mass Communications use to facilitate excursions to media houses. Since it is the students themselves that organise them, then they should decide what is payable by them, and it should be expunged from the tuition.

    On laboratories, for College of Medicine, they are charging N25,000 is it not that same amount a  600-Level Medicine student is paying right now? Yet you are asking a student to pay that alone for laboratory.  This is not justifiable. As a university, there is no way you can train a Medicine student without a laboratory, so why should our students be made to pay for it? Ordinarily, these are facilities that should make prospective students want to come to LASU or any other university. If I am in LASU without a laboratory, the question I will ask is: ‘what is the N80,000 I’m paying used for?’ I expect part of that money to go into maintenance of laboratory or studio as the case may be.

    For students in the Department of French, they are also to pay laboratory fee. We have a Language Lab that has been under construction for over seven years, yet management wants to continue to charge students on that. Laboratory fee should be reduced. Above all, we don’t expect student studying Medicine or Mass Communication to pay for laboratory at all. All we are saying is that if these charges are also expunged, we will come down to a reasonable amount.

    I also saw Caution and Developmental fees in the breakdown, right?

    The fee is N10,000, but we feel they should be payable once. We cannot continue to pay N10.000 every year to develop the university. The onus is on the owner of the university to develop it and not pass down the burden on students. This is a public university.

    Government has said it is cushioning the effect of the tuition with bursaries and scholarships?

    Only N200 million of the N1.3 billion in the bursary and scholarship board goes to LASU students. The N1.3 billion covers other students in Lagos State who are on their post graduate programmes in or outside Nigeria.

    On the bursary, over the last two years, our students have not been able to assess it.  We have students in 200 and 300 levels that have not yet collected bursaries once. Bursaries, to me, is a social responsibility meant to ameliorate our pain and not a determinant to how much government draws up our tuition.

  • Dean urges students to pay their fees

    The Dean, School of Postgraduate Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof Augustine Ubachukwu, has urged postgraduate students who have not paid their school fees in the 2013/2014 session to do so or forfeit their admission.

    The advice came following discovery that students deliberately allowed their fees to accumulate with the intention of evading payment at the end of their programme.

    “We have written to Heads of departments to ensure that students who have not paid their fees are not allowed to take examinations and present seminars. We would not invite external examiners for students who are owing or approve their synopsis”, he said.

    The Dean said his vision for the School was to promote academic excellence through research, adding that his administration would ensure that all hindrances that prevented students from completing their programmes in record time would be addressed.

    Speaking on measures taken to fast track collection of postgraduate certificates and transcripts, Prof Ubachukwu said he had instructed staff of the school to ensure that issues involving collection of certificates and transcripts were handled within 24 hours.

  • EKSU will not increase fees, says VC

    EKSU will not increase fees, says VC

    Prof Patrick Oladipo Aina was appointed the Vice-Chancellor, Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti on December 2, 2011. In this interview with ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA, the professor of Soil Physics from Ohio State University, United States, debunks rumours of impending fee hike. He said the Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has raised the university’s monthly subvention

    When you came on board, what challenges did you meet and how have you addressed them?

    There were many, and by the grace of God we have been able to tackle them. The first was the declining academic culture that was associated with a number of factors on campus. The sale of handout was so rampant that once a student bought a handout, that student needed not attend lectures. It was also rumoured then, though it may not be right, that it (sale of handouts) was like a certificate. Teachers were not attending lectures. So the first thing I did was to stop the sale of handout to students. The directive had to go through the Senate of the university and it is now a law.

    I also knew if I was stopping the sale of handout, then I had to replace it with something better. So I encouraged the academic staff to start academic publishing books – with incentives from the university to enable them publish good quality books – because I also wanted to improve the reading culture of our students. So for the past two years, sale of handouts has stopped and the new practice has come to stay.

    What other loopholes did you block?

    I found out that it was not only the students that were being extorted. I started codifying the account to streamline the account system. Some of the subsidiary charges paid to department are now paid to the university so that they would be better managed and that the money would not end up in private pockets.

    There are rumours of a likely increase in tuition.

    People often wonder how we are able to run the university with such low tuition; but they forget that we have internal mechanism in addition to the subvention from government.

    We have a government that does not dictate to Governing Council to raise fees. Aside, our governor is intellectually inclined and he knows what it is to have a world-class university. He knows the state he is running is the second least receiver of federal allocation nationwide. He knows the people are poor and he is trying to improve their lots by making poverty a thing of the past. So he cannot over tax the citizenry. This is why he is also helping the university with linkages to top rated universities all over the world.

    Some of the subsidiary charges paid to departments is now paid to the university so that they would be better managed and that the money would not end up in private pockets. But the tuition remains N50,000 because government has not mandated us not to increase, and we will not increase it.

    This is why EKSU, when compared with other universities in the country today, is about the least-charging fees among public institutions nationwide. I want the public to know that there is no university anywhere in the world that is 100 per cent financed by government. Universities are repository of knowledge that can be marketed all over the world.

    But beyond the tuition, students are complaining of other charges

    Like in other universities, we have other charges. Students will register and the fee is N3,500 for the first year. In subsequent years, students pay N1,500. First year students also pay Acceptance Fee of N32,000 which is in order as compared with other universities because we are providing internet and that cannot be free. They pay for sports and register at the Health Centre with N7,500 that will reduce to N1,500 in subsequent years. And then the field trip is equally important. Students Handbook is N1,000 and that is for the first year only. We don’t charge all of them for field trip. Those in Geology, Agriculture, and Geography pay for field trip. That is why these subsidiary fees depend on students’ discipline. It is not that we charge across board. By the time we combine all these together, it adds up to about N40,000

    However, if we compare this with what they were paying before in their departments, you will see that the total is still less. I’m sure parents are even happy now because they are paying less. In the past, parents came to complain that their children were demanding for N200,000, meanwhile, the school fees is just N100,000 or less than that. Now, we have students paying less than N80,000. Final year students in Agric and Law are paying less than N32,000. The total amount our students in Medicine are paying is N188,400 in their fourth year. They pay N100,000 for Clinical Studies which every student of Medicine must pay nationwide.

    In the long run, it’s just like N88,000 which to me is ridiculously low. This is university is where we have top-rated professors. Over 25 and the limited number of students per class is 50. That is how we pegged it for Medicine and Law. With such a low number of students, you expect that the fees should be about a million. It means the fees they are paying is not up to one third of the salaries of the staff teaching them. In most private universities, students will be charged up to N1 million because of the 50 per class. So people looking at this would think this school will soon raise its fees but I tell you we are not going to do that. We have been coping with rumours of increase in tuition for the past two years.

    What has been the reaction of students? Do they actually key into this?

    I want to tell you categorically that students are not protesting. They are happy because they are paying less. You can go and talk to them. Before now, what they were paying for had no records but today they know better. You can imagine a student buying handouts worth over N50,000 aside various departmental charges. We have a good relationship with them. I interact with students. I go around classrooms to see whether my colleagues are teaching. I go to the market. A week ago, I visited some of the markets where students buy foodstuff to see what they experience. I went to their hostel and that gave me the idea that we need to have hostels on campus. Many of them live in dilapidated hostels and some of these hostels charges high rent.

    We have a committee chaired by the Dean of Student Affairs we have set up a committee to include the landlords because we want to enforce the standards by pegging the rent. The committee now meets with landlord regularly.

    Earlier, you talked about those investments the university is leveraging on. Can you identify some of them?

    We are working on some of our investments so that in the shortest time possible, we will de-emphasise our dependence on school fees. We have EKSU Ventures that will go into investment portfolios. We have started making cement blocks, so that we can supply blocks to all the new structures that are coming on in the university. This also will form part of our entrepreneurship studies to our students, that is, our students will be taught the block-moulding skills. We are also starting the production of table water, and a bakery that will produce both cassava and wheat bread. We have a Guest House services. We also have the Ekiti State Consultancy Services. We have just finished a project for the Ekiti State Federal Government World Bank Projection Irrigation Feasibility. This is an outlet for marketing the outcome of our researches through consultancy services.

    Lately, we established the Advancement Centre with a 22-member board headed by Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi, a distinguished Nigerian whose clout, we believe, will generate funds for the university. We look for endowment; we will cultivate entrepreneurship and philanthropy. All these we believe can make 30 per cent of our annual budget. Our operating budget is N7 billion a year; our subvention is about N4.2 billion, so we need IGR to subsidise this. We have linkages universities in South Africa, Great Britain and in US, and Canada. It might interest you that the government has facilitated over 50 per cent of these linkages.

    You recently introduced new programmes. Does the university have the financial infrastructure to see them through?

    All our programmes now have full accreditation status. The last time, this university put up 45 programmes for NUC accreditation and all of them were accredited except for some few that were given one year before being reaccredited. Full accreditation was more than 75 per cent but there was none that failed accreditation.

    The new programmes we have just introduced are globally relevant, and will make our graduates stand competitive advantage. These programmes are now designed in a way that will also generate revenue. It will impact practical knowledge on students.

    For example, look at Gender and Development Studies, it has entrepreneurial aspect and it is a programme that can attract linkages with other universities as well as research grants globally. We also have the Institute of Peace Security and Governance that is going to be established by Governor Fayemi. You know governance and security are so important in African context today. We are hopeful the programme will be oversubscribed when it eventually takes off. We also have Theatre & Media Arts and its diploma aspect.

    In terms of ICT, we have the collaboration with GOOGLE Africa APPS wireless cloud projects to provide broadband internet access and state-of-the-art e-learning facility. The ongoing ICT infrastructure will be completed by next month. We also have WI-FI on campus and very soon the next Council meeting will be paperless. Once these facilities are on ground, we are going to start the e-learning and e-administration. Our Webometric ranking has also improved from 79 to 17.

    On your assumption, you introduced the no sale handout directive. To what extent is this is being enforced?

    I took the case to the Senate of the university, and fortunately members agreed with me. If for instance an academic staff sells handout, he is dismissed. If a student buys it, he is also dismissed outright. The vice-chancellor has been empowered to dismiss immediately if I can prove that handout were sold. I have twitter, and my lines are open. So if any student buys any handout from any lecturer I get alert on my line immediately. Since we made that law no student has reported sale of handout. Besides that, I go to lecture rooms.

    Other vices like sexual harassment, examination malpractices, and cultism have gone down drastically. What we practise in EKSU today is instant justice. We have dismissed a good number of staff for sexual harassment. We have about 300 students suspended now on various allegation of examination fraud, and about 50 have been dismissed already. The disciplinary committee meets regularly now and members mete out these penalties on regular basis. Students now enjoy the lease of life on campus. They know they cannot go against the matriculation oath, while teachers as well dare not contravene the university law.

    Have you encountered any backlash from workers?

    I just thank God that I haven’t encountered any. You see, if a reform is favourable, and as a leader you tend to carry people along and let them know the end result and they see that the result is as accurate as you proposed it, the confidence will be reposed in you. More than before, workers now have confidence in the leadership of the university; and that is why there has never been any protest.

    In terms of promotion and training, does a worker automatically get his due even if he meets his or her requirement or do you operate ‘no vacancy no promotion policy’?

    We have not gotten to that stage yet. We still have vacancies and promotion. If you are due for promotion, rest assured you will get it. But we have a new process where you have to go through exams. The idea is just to remove this subjectivity in the assessment of staff. We realise that only verbal interview can be very subjective so workers go through about three exams series before the final round which is the oral interview. But most people get through anyway. And let me stay the staff have also bought into that.

    What would you love to be remembered for at the end of your tenure?

    I love to be remembered for my contributions in turning around this university to a world-class institution. That will be my greatest legacy. I want people to say one Aina was here and started this roadmap to making what this institution is today.

    A world-class university is not only physical. Currently, we are having real ecstatic high value of our campus now than it used to be. I also want to change human beings, get my colleagues to be involved in cutting edge research that will not only turn around the fortunes of the state but Nigeria at large. io want our products to be known all over the world; I mean graduates that are job-creators.

  • Abia Warriors to abolish signing-on fees

    Abia Warriors to abolish signing-on fees

    Premier League debutants Abia Warriors FC of Umuahia have said signing-on fees will not be paid to their players and officials this season to avoid the face-off usually associated with the non-settlement of such fees by clubs during and after the season.

    Chairman of the club, Emeka Inyama, who disclosed this in Umuahia during the investiture of the club’s new Patrons at the Michael Okpara Auditorium, said the club will instead pay enhanced salaries, a living wage to its staff, players and technical crew to give them a sense of belonging and avoid the bickering associated with non-payment of signing-on fees.

    “The problem of signing-on fees is the problem of Nigerian Football. For instance, if a player is paid a salary of N150, 000 and he is promised the sum of Six Million naira as signing-on fees, it is difficult for a governor that has other contending issues to bring out about N300 Million or N400 Million for the payment of signing-on fees.

    “And if it is not settled, the players will agitate and if they agitate, they don’t play well and they will go on strike. So, here, we will pay them enhanced salaries, living wages that will enable them handle their problems.”

    Inyama said he had to apply this innovation in order to help the government which is sponsoring the team. He also disclosed he had discussed with some financial Institutions to ensure that part of the money they are paid will be saved for them while there is an insurance package that will go with it.

    The Warriors’ chief, who is also the Chairman Nigeria National League Board and a member of the CAF Publicity Committee, said the club will not rely solely on government for its financial needs this season as arrangements are in top gear to bring in the private sector.

    According to him, the club has concluded plans to develop season-long ticketing whereby fans will purchase tickets in bulk with permanent seats allocated to them at the stadium, while raffle draws and other promotional activities will also be held on match days to encourage spectator’s troop to the stadium to watch the Warriors.

  • No hike in fees, VC assures students

    No hike in fees, VC assures students

    The vice-Chancellor of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), Prof Femi Mimiko, has said the management does not have plan to increase the school fees as being speculated.

    He said there was no iota of truth in the rumour.

    Speaking at the Information Unit of the university, Prof Mimiko said the management would not deviate from the policy of the Ondo State government, which said it could afford any student to drop out of school for the reason of tuition.

    The VC said there would not be any increment in the present session, explaining that the government had a policy in place that was being directed at ensuring the weakest in the society would not be disadvantaged.

    With the assurance, students and their parents praised the management for maintaining the status quo.

    Mr. Gbenga Arajulu said: “As a parent, I am deeply impressed with this development and I congratulate the university management for not reneging on its promises.”

    Mr Ayodeji Adejuwon, another parent, who described the development as a relief on parents, said: “I am elated that the university is maintaining the old school fees.”

    Gbenga Akinbolade, 400-Level Mass Communication, said the rumour made many students to be panic, adding that with the clarification by the VC, “we are grateful to the authorities and I believe this good trend will continue to project the image of the university”.

  • Akwa Ibom spends N720m on students’ exam fees

    AKWA Ibom State Government has paid N720 million this year on various examination fees for students in secondary schools in the state.

    A breakdown shows that N436 million fees were paid for West African Examinations Council (WAEC), N46 million for National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB) while N238 million went to schools’ heads for logistics.

    Governor Godswill O. Akpabio, who stated this Saturday, during the national flag-off ceremony of the distribution of instructional materials for basic education school in Nigeria, held at Methodist Central Primary School, Etoi, Uyo, said this was done to support the free, compulsory education policy of the state government.

    He said, ‘’Akwa Ibom State will continue to support the federal government in the education sector. Already, we have put in over N238 million for logistics to school heads in the state. We have renovated over 2,000 classroom blocks, put in N436 million for WAEC registration and paid N46 million for NAPTEB fees where over 1.7 million children in the state are enrolled in both the primary and secondary schools.

    The governor called on Nigerians to support the president for the country to succeed and to be appreciative of government efforts, pledging the support of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum to him, especially in the transport and power sectors.

    Also speaking, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan said that the supply of textbooks to schools has been receiving increasing delivery in schools, which has reached an acceptable level in education system.

    Jonathan, who was represented by Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo, further disclosed that the Federal Government has provided 96,326,725 books in English Language, Mathematics, Basic Science/Technology, Social Studies and Library materials to public schools for distribution, saying that the efforts of Federal Government is to provide quality education in schools and redouble their efforts on other sectors of the country.

    The Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai, hinted that the federal government has so far invested N10 billion in the provision of education materials for schools in the country, saying this was part of President Jonathan’s transformation agenda to provide qualitative education for Nigerian schools.

     

  • LASU students protest over tuition fees

    LASU students protest over tuition fees

    Students of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, protested the slight reduction in their tuition yesterday they disrupted the final day of the second semester examinations for the 2011/2012 academic session by some hours.

    All hopes for a significant reduction in the fees in their were dash on Monday when  the varsity’s management of the university announced the new tuition regime for next session.

    According to the official bulletin by the Centre For Information, Press and Public Relations (CIPPR) of the Vice Chancellor’s Office, dated September 17, fresh students are to pay between N151, 250 and N326, 250 when they get to 200-Level as against the N193, 750 and N308, 750 which they paid in their first year.

    Following the announcement, some of the students under the Joint Committee of Class Governors of the fresh students staged a protest, boycotting the second semester compulsory GNS examinations

    The placard-bearing students blocked the ever-busy Ojo/Badagry Expressway until policemen were drafted in to restore law and order.

    They came in three Hillux vans which were packed outside the university’s main gate.

    The revised tuition fees is to be made in two installments when they resume for the 2012/2013 academic session.