By Paul Onomuakpokpo
As the nation contends
with slumped economic fortunes that are mainly accruable from oil resources, it
makes hefty sense to contemplate fresh ways to source revenues to sustain the
operations of institutions. But increasing the cost of university education
that would be borne by students and their parents as recently proposed by vice
chancellors should not be one of these measures.
By proposing that
tuition-free university education should be abolished, the vice chancellors
under the aegis of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities
have only reopened an old debate. It is the right time for the debate because
it throws up the imperative to prudently manage resources so that there would
be enough to deploy in important areas of the nation amid the recession.
The economic crisis
has rendered the government at both the federal and state levels incapable of
paying workers and pensioners. Now, there have been lamentations about how the
paucity of funds has become a major impediment to the actualisation of the
great visions that different levels of government and their officials have for
the people.
Yet it is a wrong time for the debate because the same economic crisis that has
reduced the funds available for the government has also impoverished the
citizens. Indeed, since the citizens are the more adversely affected, vice
chancellors should not expect parents to get money to bear an additional cost
of university education. Is it the parents who have been rendered jobless by
the closure or relocation of their companies that would pay the tuition? Or is
it the parents who receive N18,000 minimum wage that would pay it? Even with
the universities operating the so-called tuition-free system now, is it all the
citizens whose children are qualified for university education that can afford
it?
The idea of stopping
the tuition-free policy should be jettisoned simply because of the poor.
Remember, most of these vice-chancellors and others who are canvassing the
payment of fees in universities enjoyed tuition-free university education. But
for this, most of them would not be where they are now. Those in the South West
during the government of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo often recall with a
high sense of gratitude how his free educational policy made it easy for them
to go to school. Yes, the population of university students then was not as
much as we have now.
