On November 27, 2019, the Senate of Bayero University, Kano approved an upward review of the accommodation and other administrative charges for post-graduate and undergraduate students of the university.
In a statement signed by the Director of Examination, Admission and Records (DEAR), Hajiya Amina Umar Abdullahi, the university said it has increased hostel fees for international postgraduate students by 33 per cent, from N60,000 to N80,000. For Nigerian postgraduate students, there has been 100.8 per cent increase from N12,150 to N25,150. Consequently, undergraduate students will now pay N20,090 which is 66 per cent higher than the previous N12,090.
This sudden hike in the university’s accommodation and other administrative charges will pose a big challenge to the students who are mostly poor. Some of the students do part-time jobs in order to feed and take care of themselves, since their parents cannot cater for them. Despite these challenges, the university management still decided on the increment.
Though the university senate has been trying to help the indigent students by providing N50,000 scholarship to some of them, but that is not enough because not even up to 20 per cent of the indigent students are beneficiaries due to the current economic situation in the country.
It is shocking why the sudden increment in the accommodation and administrative charges of the university? What is the rationale behind the increment? Is it that the hostels have been renovated? These rhetorical questions are necessary because there is nothing conducive about the situation of the hostels.
Bayero University management should in the interest of the general society temper justice with mercy and reconsider these students and their parents by withdrawing the increment as this is the only means of survival for them.
The school should have a second thought before taking this obnoxious decision in a school domiciled in an area battling with poverty and unemployment. The consequences of this increment will lead to high cost of living for the students.
BUK is one of the few federal institutions in the country where students can afford to study, an increment in the accommodation and other administrative charges will only make lives of the students messier and more miserable.
Rabi Isyaka Rabiu,
Department of Information and Media Studies,
Bayero University, Kano
