Vice-Chancellors Seek ‘Commensurate Tuition Fee’ in Universities

“This will enable students pay revised fees commensurate with the true value of university education.

The Vice Chancellors' Committee of Nigerian Universities has said it is no longer realistic to have tuition-free university education in Nigeria.

The vice chancellors said in a communiqué that a change in policy would enable parents, guardians and government “to equitably share the financial burden of education”.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the communiqué which was signed by the Committee’s Secretary-General, Prof. Michael Faborode, was issued after its biennial meeting in Abuja.
 “This will enable students pay revised fees commensurate with the true value of university education...." the bulletin read in part.

“The current inclination towards free tuition or free university education is unrealistic to the national vision for practical and qualitative education and not sustainable. To account and provide for poor and indigent students, government is encouraged to set up/re-establish an Education Bank to provide loans and access to finance,” the vice chancellors said.


University managements were therefore urged to think out of the box in order to exploit all alternative and additional means of funding universities, including payment of tuition fees.

The communiqué also called for a holistic overhaul of the education sector so as to tackle the decay reflected from the primary to the tertiary levels.

The vice chancellors urged universities to work out fresh strategies to build linkages with industries and partnerships with the private sector and called on the Federal Government to ensure sustainable funding of universities and other tertiary institutions to make them relevant, globally competitive and be properly positioned to spearhead sustainable development.

The communiqué also advised government to increase scholarships, bursaries and other aids for students desirous of pursuing tertiary and postgraduate education and called on the government to ensure that full university autonomy was attained and sustained in Nigerian universities, adding that proprietors of private universities should adhere strictly to guidelines and templates for appointing chairmen and members of the councils.
This, the communiqué said, would ensure that only the best in society were saddled with the task of governing the nation’s universities.

By
Chinelo Okafor