The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Tuesday, advised Nigerians to resist the proposed decision of Federal Government to hike tuition fees in public universities across the country to ₦350,000.
This call was made by the Ibadan zonal leadership of the union comprising academic unions in University of Ibadan, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, University of Osun, Kwara State University and University of Ilorin.
Speaking with newsmen at the Correspondents’ Chapel, Oyo NUJ council, Mokola, Ibadan, its zonal coordinator, Dr Ade Adejumo, said: “The struggle is not all about paying arrears and entitlements; it is about the survival of the university system.”
Dr Adejumo said: “It is no longer news that the renegotiation, which the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu promised was going to last only six weeks, has broken down. First, the leader of government team, who was supposed to be an arbiter between the parties, assumed an arrogant attitude that sought to foist a predetermined mind set of government on the union.
“The union was confronted with a situation where government is bent on imposing tuition fees, beginning from ₦350,000 on students in the public owned tertiary institutions.
“On the question as to how students will raise such money, the answer that government has is that it will establish an 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 a right and not a 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.”