The Zonal coordinator of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ibadan Zone, Dr. Ade Adejumo, on Tuesday raised alarm over plans by the Federal Government to increase federal universities’ tuition fees.
Adejumo said this while addressing members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the NUJ in Ibadan.
Adejumo disclosed that the leader of the government team was bent on introduction of the increased N350,000 fees.
He called on ASUU to let Nigerian know that there could be labour crisis in federal universities, if the plans is executed.
He said, “The union is again constrained to draw the attention of Nigerian public to an impending labour crisis in the Nigerian universities as a result of the insensitivity of the Nigerian government to issues critical to the survival of the educational system in Nigeria.
“It is no longer news that the renegotiation, which Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, promised was going to last for only six weeks, has broken down.
“The union was confronted with a situation where government is bent on imposing tuition fees, beginning from N350,000, on students in the Nigerian public owned tertiary institutions.
“As to how the students will raise such money, we were told that the government will establish Education Bank, where students will access credit facilities and pay back on completion of their studies.
“The union, speaking from the background that education is the right and not privilege of every Nigerian child, made frantic efforts to make pragmatic explanations on the negative implications and the non-feasibility of this scheme to representatives of government to no avail.“
