Fee hike row in Ondo varsities

Students of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko and the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa, have protested the increase in their tuition fees. The schools have been shut for tempers to cool. ADESOLA IKULAJOLU (300-Level Mass Communication) reports.

IT was meant to be a money spinner for the Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) and the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa (OSUSTECH). But the fee hike policy has triggered a chain of crises.

The problems arose when the management of the two institutions barred students who were yet to pay their tuition fees from writing the Computer-Based Test (CBT) exam. This directive, it would appear, added fuel to the fire of the students’ fury.

AAUA students were the first to protest the hike. They were joined by their colleagues at OSUSTECH a few days after.

Last year, fees at AAUA were reviewed upward by the government, prompting protests by the students who flooded Akure, the state capital.

The tuition fee, which was between N28,000 and N32,000, depending on the faculty, was jacked up to N100,000 for returning students in the Faculties of Science, Law, Social and Management Sciences and N150,000 for new students.

Similarly, returning students of the Faculties of Education and Arts would part with N80,000 and new students N100,000.