The Federal Government has directed that no federal tertiary institution in the country is permitted to impose tuition fees.
This was stated by Mr. David Adejo, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, on Tuesday in Abuja during a public hearing by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on student loans.
Adejo referred to the nation’s federal universities’ recent increase in fees as regrettable.
“They levy fees to cover expenses like lodging, ICT, and power, among others. Such fees may only be approved by the Governing Councils of the Universities.
The University of Lagos is the only institution that raised fees following the signing of the Student Loan Act.
“All Governing Councils were dissolved, so they came to the Ministry with a proposal to raise their charges, and we approved them.
“Even though other people have brought their proposal, he said, “immediately that was done, there was a resolution from the House stopping the increase in fees and the President also gave a directive stopping any increase in fees.”
According to Adejo, some of the institutions’ services, such as electricity bills, were paid for with the fees they collected.
He disputed assertions that the passage of the Students’ Loan Act was partially to blame for the increase in university fees.
Adejo said that despite the fees, the universities had not been able to cover all of their costs.
He added that plans had been made for the student loan program to launch in the 2023–2024 school year.
Adejo claimed that, President Bola Tinubu issued a directive stating that all necessary work on the scheme’s take-off modalities must be finished by September in order to allow for its launch.
The student loan, according to the committee’s chairman Teseer Ugbor, is one of the federal government’s palliative measures to lessen Nigerians’ suffering and to ensure that all motivated Nigerians have access to higher education.
However, he expressed worry about the loan disbursement procedure, recovering the funds from beneficiaries, and the likelihood that some students would not be able to access the loan.
In order to ensure that all Nigerian students interested in the loan received it, he called for dialogue in the process of trying to amend the law.
