The Fate Of Indigent OAU Students

Editorial

Since last month, Nigeria’s premier tertiary institution, Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile Ife, was  shut  following a protest by students over the increase in their school fees. The OAU management increased the charges of its newly admitted students from N37,150 and N42,150 to between N82,400, N92,700 and N95,700 (acceptance fee inclusive), depending on faculties.

The fee to be paid by 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. Irked by the development, students of the institution took to the street in protest which led to the closure of the institution indefinitely. Justifying the fee increase, OAU management argued that the increase was  necessitated by the rising cost of education and the dwindling subvention from the Federal Government.

It is however obvious that this argument does not hold water. It is an open knowledge that after ASUU’s protest last year, the Federal Government disbursed N200 billion as a special fund to revamp academic infrastructure in universities. Since OAU is a beneficiary of the funds, we wonder why the management of the institution decided to impose a burden on students and their poor parents with this monstrous fee hike.

OAU gets numerous grants both locally and internationally, with the most recent being the $8 million grant from the World Bank. It also profits from its booming commercial ventures such as OAU Table Water, OAU Bread, agricultural extension programmes among others. Hence, the management has no justifiable reason for introducing this sudden fee hike.

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It is on record that OAU has a long tradition of good financial health. This also explains why the institution has the largest concentration of brilliant students from homes which struggle to sponsor children’s tertiary education. With the recent trend of astronomical increase in fees of tertiary institutions, the fate of many students from poor homes acquiring higher education appears quite bleak. It should be stressed that skyrocketing fees in our tertiary institutions has an immediate and far-reaching effect on the socio-economic well-being of students, parents and the nation at large.

Nigeria cannot afford to play with the education of its young generation. With insecurity as a prime challenge of our nation at the moment, an increase in the already alarming rate of out-of-school children spells doom for our nation as terrorism, prostitution, hooliganism, cyber crime, armed robbery and kidnapping will assume a monstrous dimension. It is true that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. We must rise, therefore, to save Nigeria from the impending doom.

The education of our young people should be a priority, not an option. In the words of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, “in order to attain the goal of economic freedom and prosperity, Nigeria must do certain things as a matter of urgency and priority. It must provide free education (at all levels) for the masses.” This is possible if the billions being stolen by government officials and politicians are channelled into this enterprise.

Indeed, it is a right and not a privilege for our youths to have access to university education, hence education must be affordable, accessible and within the reach of ordinary Nigerians. Though ignorance is costlier than education, tertiary education should not be made out of reach of the struggling Nigerian youth. Hence, we call on the OAU management to re-open the institution and reverse the fees. As much as fees could be reviewed upwards, such review should be reasonable and also show that OAU is a federal school and not a private university.

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