The House of Representatives on Wednesday called for the abolishment of ‘acceptance fees’ paid by students offered admission into various institutions in Nigeria which lead to a debate. Following the debate, Emeka Chinedu, PDP-Imo (Ahiazu Mbaise/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency) pointed the issue as one of the major factors contributing to the poor state of our education system. “predatory admission policies being enforced by tertiary institutions, particularly the requirement for payment of non-refundable acceptance fees as a condition precedent for admission”. - He said
He gave example of some schools and how much they charge for their acceptance fee; “it should bother the lawmakers that his state’s Imo State University charges N70,000 as acceptance fee. Other institutions like the University of Ibadan charge 35,000; University of Lagos, 20,000; Ahmadu Bello University, 30,000; Lagos State University, N20,000; University of Uyo, 25,000,'
Following this reports, the House Committee on Tertiary Education and Services was mandated to investigate the admission policies and practices of tertiary institutions in the country as they relate to the charge of acceptance fees in order to remove all obstacles to accessing tertiary education in the country.
Meanwhile, the vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan, has said his institution will comply with the directive. However, he gave reasons why the institution has to bring up alternate means to source for funds. He said; "the amount accruing to the University of Ibadan, for instance, in a year is not enough to fund the university in a month. Someone has to take up the bill,”
“We have to make up our mind on what we really want. You can’t even run a creche without funds. In a year, we spend at least N200 million on our clinic contactors. Add this to electricity bill and diesel, then you’re talking of over N800 million"
“What the university is getting for overhead is less than N100 million. So where do you think the remaining N700 million will come from? Unless you want to close down the whole university,”
