BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – The Senate on Tuesday directed the authorities of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), to stay action on its increment of tuition fees for students of the institution.
Accordingly, the Senate mandated its Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFUND to investigate the matter to finding lasting solution to the issue.
The Senate’s decision to wade into the increase in fees by the institution was reached following a motion sponsored by Senator Abubakar Kyari (APC, Borno North), in which he bemoaned the recent decision by the UNIMAID management to increase the registration and other fees of the institution from N25,000 to N129,000, an increase of over 400 percent.
In the motion, Kyari said; “Half of the men in the North-east have received no education at all, and the figure rises to over sixty-one percent for women. It is imperative that schools in the North-east should remain of strategic national interest with overwhelming National Security importance.”
He noted that education remains a repellent and potent tool to defeat Boko Haram and also revamp the North East from under development and poverty.
In the words of Kyari; “62 percent of Nigerian children who are not in school live in Northern Nigeria. Borno State has the highest number of people that don’t have access to education due to the Boko Haram crisis in particular.”
Kyari therefore, called on all stakeholders to rise to the occasion to ensure that the increment in fees is reversed due to the greater need to propagate empowerment through education at the tertiary level.
In a unanimous voice vote, the Senate resolved and mandated its Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFUND, to engage the Ministry of Education and stakeholders such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), with a view to reaching consensus on a harmonised fee for all universities across the country.
