Wanted: A More Realistic Approach To Ebonyi State University school Fees Drive
The self-explanatory official communication dated 25th June, 2021 and signed by the Registrar of Ebonyi State University, EBSU, Mrs. Bibian N. Nwokwu on the university's fees drive which threatens to enforce a twenty thousand (₦20,000.00) naira late fees penalty between 5th and 12th July, 2021; shut EBSU payment portal on 12th July, 2021 and; thereafter enforce a "No fees, no examination" policy which, according to the Registrar, will make EBSU students who could not pay their school fees "lose their studentship for 2020/2021 session" refers. Before proceeding further, it is necessary at this juncture to commend and appreciate the gesture of EBSU authorities in their earlier modification of their "No fees, No Examination" method in the face of the negative impacts of Covid-19 on the economy.
It is also important to note that prompt payment of tuition and other fees by parents and guardians for their respective wards is important at this critical point to enable respective educational institutions, especially a poorly-funded state university like EBSU, run her costs. One has also heard arguments credited to the visitor of EBSU that the richest state in America is sustained by funds they make from their universities and other state institutions.
As good as the above argument and foreign template sound, there is an overriding need to balance each of them with the realities on the ground of our Nigerian and Ebonyi setting. I say this because it is wrong to do policy grafting without putting in place the requisite under-pinning logistics which sustain it. For instance, in other climes we would like to copy, the governments set up organic and progressive economic logistics which enable private and public economic activities/ventures to thrive and make dignifying labour rewarding. In the same vein, the governments of those referenced American States encouraged researchers and provided pristine logistics and funds for breakthrough researches in important areas of human need like Health, Science and Technology. So, the said funds generated by American universities do not come from school fees! Rather, they come from successful researches sponsored by the policy-makers and drivers of the respective American States. Even the culture of prompt payment of school fees is sustained by vibrant economic set-ups and educational subsidies. These are enough to say that those feats do not hang on the air. They are made feasible by tangible enabling logistics provided by the governments of those States in collaboration with their critical stakeholders.
In Nigeria and Ebonyi State, there is no doubt that our economy has been destroyed by the triune impacts of policy inconsistency, corruption and Covid-19 lockdown. The result of this inclement economic weather especially the Covid-19 lockdown is that universities like EBSU are squeezing two academic sessions into one calendar year. This implies that parents whose businesses were locked down and their respective incomes cut off for about a year are expected to pay the fees for two sessions in less than one calendar year. This is a tall order which may ruin the careers of many students especially in view of the post Covid-19 lockdown economic meltdown which has left the Nigerian economy in shambles and debt-dependent; and Nigerian parents/guardians financially broke. This in turn is bound to feed the security challenges we have in the country and in Ebonyi State with many vibrant angry "personnel". That there is no waiver of school fees for students as part of Covid-19 response protocol for the education sector is bad enough and that has pushed students and their respective parents to the wall. Taking two academic sessions within a space of one year is also tasking, inconducive and reduces the quality of teaching and learning. Taking policy decisions that may ruin the careers even when the university can save those careers through a special relaxation of the "no fees, no examination" policy for this semester is antithetical to the vision, mission and mandate of Ebonyi State University and indeed any university worth its name.
In the light of the foregoing, it is hereby prayed that Visitor of Ebonyi State University, Governor David Umahi; the Vice Chancellor of Ebonyi State University, Prof. Chigozie Ogbu and the entire EBSU authorities should as part of the university's Corporate Social Responsibility review their current school fees drive policy to allow students who are unable to pay their fees write the on-coming semester examinations since no student can escape the fee obligation during the painstaking mandatory clearance exercise before graduation! This is realistic in view of the economic trauma which parents/guardians who pay these fees have continued to pass through since the breakout of Covid-19. It will not only serve to portray the humaneness of EBSU management team; it will equally give EBSU management team out as a creative, realistic and exemplary team which has worked out an autochthonous Covid-19 response protocol for the institution it is managing for other institutions to copy.
Monday Eze is the National Coordinator of Nigeria Parents Forum.
