ASUU warns of imminent increase in dropouts as varsities increase tuition fees

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is concerned about the nation’s universities’ recent fee increases and fears that many students may be forced to drop out.

President of ASUU Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, made this known during an interview on Channels TV Sunday Politics.

Due to what they described as the country’s economic reality, many public universities recently hiked their tuition costs.

However, Professor Osodeke is concerned that parents and guardians may find it challenging to pay the increased fees, even though some have been revised reduced in response to student protests.

Read Also: ASUU: It is constitutional for Nigerian govt to fund university education

He said, “Today, universities are arbitrarily increasing tuition fees.

“Is that correct in an environment today where the minimum wage is N30,000 per month and where they have to pay rent and pay heavily for transportation? And you are enforcing this thing on the students?

“As a result of this – I can assure you that you can check if nothing is done about this heavy fee being introduced all over the country today – in the next two or three years, more than 40 to 50 per cent of these students who are in school would drop out. ”

According to him, if such happens, these students would become willing tools in the hands of those who want to make the “country ungovernable”.

“That is what we are saying: create the environment we had in the ’60s and ’70s,” the ASUU chief said.

“When I was a student, the government was paying me for being a student. Let’s have an environment where the children of the poor can have access to education, not closing them. If you say school fees of N300,000, how can the children of somebody who earns N50,000 a month be able to pay such fee?”

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