The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Kaduna State University (KASU) Chapter, says 75 per cent of the university’s students may drop out of school due to the monumental increment in tuition fees.

Chairman of the Union, Peter Adamu, said in a statement in Kaduna that the students might have to leave because their parents could not afford to pay.

Adamu urged the state government to rescind its decision to hike the tuition fees and engage relevant stakeholders on the issue in line with its Open Government Partnership.

According to him, education is a right and not a privilege, funding of education as stipulated in the Nigerian Constitution is the sole responsibility of government, not parents.

He said the university had over 19,000 students, with more than 17,000 of them from the state, adding that 70 per cent of the indigenous students were sons and daughters of peasant farmers, civil servants and petty traders.

The ASUU chairman said the increase would further widen the existing gap between the rich and the poor.

He pointed out that the consequences of the upward review would be unquantifiable.

Adamu said the purported scholarship programme unveiled by the government was a smokescreen to justify the increase.

He said that data from the State Scholarship and Loans Board showed that between 2017 and 2020, only about 13.29 per cent of the over 19,000 students benefited from the scholarship scheme.

He added that in 2020, students were promised laptop loans for online lectures at the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, but none of the students benefited.

Recall that the Commissioner of Education, Shehu Makarfi on Monday, confirmed the tuition fees increment in all the state-owned tertiary institutions.

Makarfi explained that the decision was to reposition the schools to deliver quality skills and training to solve 21st century challenges.

He said that KASU had been directed to increase the tuition fees from N24,000 to a minimum of N150,000.

He added that the minimum fees for National Diploma and Higher National Diploma programmes had been pegged at a minimum of N75,000 and N100,000 respectively.

The commissioner also said that the National Certificate in Education programme was also increased to N75,000.

The Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has expressed concern that some elite schools in the country are compromising its admission process by collecting illegal examination fees from students for their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

Oloyede disclosed that these schools collected between N8,000 and N16,000 against the official fee of N4,700 from candidates to compromise the process.

He stated this during his oversight visit to some of the Computer Based Test (CBT) centers in Lagos.

The registrar said that the JAMB would write to the Federal Ministry of Education to sanction these schools for depriving parents from enjoying the benefits of the reduced cost of the UTME by the government.

He said that is why the schools are bringing their students en mass to the CBT centres for registration and in the process, candidates lose their data.

Oloyede identified this unwholesome practice as one of the reasons schools are involved in examination malpractices to justify the high examination fee they have collected from the candidates.

He said that a total of 410,517 candidates have registered for UTME while 12,040 candidates registered for direct entry in 787 centers and still counting.

The registrar disclosed that the board is partnering with EFCC and ICPC to ensure that any public university that failed to comply with its laid down principles would be questioned.

Oloyede described its process of admissions as transparent, adding that the issue of the National Identification Number (NIN) remained mandatory for all candidates sitting for its exam.

He also observed that wrong subjects combinations by candidates in the process of registration is one of the factors that militate against their being admitted into tertiary institutions in the country despite having a high UTME score.

Oloyede expressed concern that the disparity in the reward system might be the reason why fewer candidates register for admission into the colleges of education.

Abducted students of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi in Benue State North Central Nigeria have been released by their abductors.

A statement by the Director, Information, Protocol and Public Relations of the University, Rosemary Waku, revealed that the students were returned to campus on Tuesday.

She identified the released students as Israel Farren Kwaghgee and Solomon Salihu.

Spokesperson for the state Police Command, DSP Catherine Anene, also confirmed the release of the students.

Anene had on Monday disclosed that three students were abducted.

The National Board for Technical Education says it would push for the establishment of more vocational institutes to produce the skilled manpower needed to drive the nation’s economy.

The Executive Secretary of the board, Prof. Idris Bugaje, stated this in an interview in Kaduna.

Bugaje, who was recently appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari,  explained that the country’s polytechnics have all along been providing technical education and very little of vocational training which is where the actual employability of Nigerians lie.

The Executive Secretary revealed his intension to establish Zonal Offices across the geo-political zones so that they will do advocacy to industries and the state governments in their zones, so that young people can be enrolled into vocational training.

He said for every university, there should be five polytechnics and for every polytechnic, there needs to be vocational training centres in equal or more than that number.

The NBTE executive secretary said the vocational sector has not been properly handled whilst most of the technical education curriculum has not been reviewed for over 20 years.

He assured that the NBTE would do a lot of advocacies for people to understand the value of technical and vocational education and bring all relevant stakeholders, particularly the industries on board.

Bugaje said that although the Federal Government had in 2017 approved the National Skills Qualification Framework, its implementation has not been well articulated.

He said within the next one year, the NBTE would develop vocational track across polytechnics and new institutions that will be established, so that Nigerians can be properly provided skills training.

He added that there is need to change training, curriculum and National Occupational Standard to fit with the new development.

Bugaje also pledged to find a way to boost the morale of NBTE staff through training and ensure interaction more closely with polytechnics to enhance the board’s regulatory functions.

On the ongoing strike by polytechnics lecturers, Bugaje said he would engage the National Executives of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) in a bid to find lasting solutions to incessant strikes in polytechnics.