Tuition Fee Hike: NANS Knocks OAU, Students Considers Protest Monday
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has tackled the management of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, over the hike in its tuition fees.
NANS Public Relations Officer, Giwa Temitope, in a statement issued on Sunday, said the association had been observing with keen interest the events unfolding in the OAU and “the insistence of the university management to increase fees despite the directive of the Federal Government that universities should put fee increments on hold.”
Recall that the OAU management last week after an initial fee increment, slashed the fees by less than 50% following a meeting it had with the student leaders. However, the students’ School Fees Review Committee tagged the reduction as “meagre.”
“We unequivocally reject this meagre reduction, as the newly proposed fees remain unaffordable for most of our students and fall significantly short of the 50 per cent reduction demanded by our union,” the chairman of the committee, Olugbade Majeed, alongside other executive members, stated in a statement issued.
NANS said, “We have been duly informed that despite the fact that the students’ union of the institution shifted ground from a total reversal during their meeting with the management to demand a 50% cut in the fees, the management insisted that such won’t be possible.”
Giwa noted that students were major stakeholders in every institution of learning, as a result, their demands must be taken seriously.
“As an association, we declare that we are in solidarity with students of OAU as they fight fee increment, and we call on the management of the institution to listen to the voice of reason by agreeing to slash the fees by 50% as proposed by the students’ union,” Giwa added.
