Students of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, have been calling the school’s management to stop its plan to significantly increase school fees this January.
A FUTA student representative spoke with FIJ on Monday, lamenting the injustice of the proposed school fee increase.
“FUTA has been known to be one of the best federal universities in Nigeria, and this has been the case because of many reasonable decisions of its management in the past,” Seun Oduntan (not real name) said on Monday.
“Even when other universities increased their school fees in the past, FUTA was always reasonable in its demands from students. Today, the sudden increase in our fees is a shock. This wicked management expects us to run around within two weeks just to find the money that will be able to ensure we meet the proposed school fees.”
READ ALSO: Osun Police Arrest FUTA Students Travelling to Lagos, Extort N45,000 From Them
FUTA’s official Facebook page shared the breakdown of the proposed school fees on Wednesday.
Students and alumni have been clamouring for a shutdown of the idea of increased school fees ever since.
“I feel this is not the right time to release this. This ought to have been released earlier. Where do you want most of us to run to within two weeks?” Olamide Orowole, a FUTA student, responded on the school’s Facebook page.
“This is unfair. Proposing to increase the fee 18 days to resumption? Despite knowing how this current administration’s policies have brought hardship on the masses, this is unfair and it shows a lack of human empathy from the management,” Akande Matthew Olusegun, a FUTA alumnus, replied to the school on its Facebook page.
On Friday, just two days after FUTA posted its newly proposed school fees, a federal government official announced that President Bola Tinubu had approved N683 billion for tertiary education institutions.
Sonny Echono, Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), told university representatives that Tinubu had approved N1,906,944,930 each to federal universities as intervention funds for 2024.
FUTA’s management has not shown indications of going back on its newly proposed school fees, and students have resorted to physical protests.
READ ALSO: 3 FUTA Ambulances Fail to Rescue Accident Victim Due to Lack of Fuel
FIJ called Professor Adenike Oladiji, FUTA’s vice chancellor, on Monday to react to the students’ protest and the rationale behind the management’s proposed school fee hike.
“Well, maybe I should just refer you to the PRO. I think you should speak with the PRO,” Oladiji said.
This reporter could not recover the contact details of the school’s PRO. Professor David Oke, FUTA’s dean of student affairs, did not answer phone calls from FIJ.
Oke was yet to respond to a text sent to him at press time.
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