Tuition fees in govt varsities illegal – Education Minister

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday expressed concern over reported cases of tuition fees being charged by some federal universities, and ordered the National Universities Commission (NUC) to clarify and update the council on the matter. 

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting in Abuja, Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Onwuka, said it was illegal for any federal university to charge tuition fees.
He said the law had made it clear that no federal university should charge students tuition fees, stressing that the federal government could not determine payment of fees in private and state universities.
“Members of FEC want the NUC through the ministry to provide a status report to FEC on all the nation’s universities in terms of their performance, be they private, state or federal. We stressed on quality of staff on the various universities.
“And then FEC discussed the issue of school fees in the various universities and noted that as of law, no federal university should charge tuition fees. And, we understand some universities now charge fees per course unit and we are going to make sure that we investigate that properly and make it stops.
“But students can pay other auxiliary fees but not in excess. Various university councils and management should be able to fix what fees students should pay that is affordable and acceptable to the students. That is the position. The federal government does not determine fees for private and state universities, they only take responsibility for fees paid in the federal universities,” he said.
The minister also told journalists that the council approved the establishment of Skyline University in Kano state after a rigorous verification exercise of the claims contained in the application and the recommendation to the Ministry of Education by the NUC.
Also speaking, Minister of State for Aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, said the council approved procurement of equipment for the completion of control towers in some airports across the country.
He said the airports include Maiduguri, Akure, Benin, Illorin, Kaduna and Ibadan.
“This particular procurement was done in 2011. From 2011, government stopped funding this particular procurement with all its importance. So, we provided for it in 2017 so that we can complete it, and the council has graciously approved to complete those control towers which will enhance communications and security of our airspace. The total value is N1.365, 364, 458.75,’’ he said.

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