The seven-man Executive Committee set up by Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State to examine the possibility of a downward review of Lagos State University, LASU, new tuition fee, which has pitched the students against the government, will submit its report today
The committee, headed by Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa, was inaugurated last month by the governor to re-visit the issue of the tuition fee, which has led to a statewide protest by the students and supported by Joint Action Front, JAF, umbrella body for pro-labour civil society groups in the country.
Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba, had last Thursday, disclosed that the committee would be submitting its report soon.
According to him, the state government would act after the committee submitted its report to Council.
Speaking further, Ibirogba noted that the three-year-old fee regime would be reviewed based on the outcome of the Committee set up by the State Executive Council to handle the issue.
Meantime, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor John Obafunwa, has debunked claim by the Students through their Student Union Government, SUG that the new fee regime introduced in 2011 has led to high rate of students’ dropout, saying; “The students who drop out did so because of reasons other than the fees.”
According to the statement issued by the Special Adviser to the governor on Media, Mr. Hakeem Bello, Obafunwa said “when the list was checked against the records of the institution, it was discovered that some of the names on the list submitted by the students were those of non students of the institution while others were those who dropped out because they did not meet the appropriate CGP of the school.”
Reacting, president of the SUG, Mr. Yusuf Nurudeen, challenged the Vice Chancellor to a public debate on the issue saying “Before our protest, we discovered 192 students have dropped out of school because they could not afford the new tuition fee. But when we started the protest, we discovered that over a 1,000 students have left the school because of the new fee.” (Vanguard)