THE dispute this time is as a result of the enforcement of the new “No fees, no lecture policy” of the university, which the university has strongly insisted it must enforce for numerous reasons. The students, however, said they were rather contented with the now familiar “No fees, no exam” policy of EKSU. The current development is as fascinating as it is intriguing.
The protest of Thursday was spontaneous but on Friday, the students covered their faces with masks and even had a DJ on hand to entertain them while they blocked the institution’s main gate for the second day running.
A student source said: “The protest of Thursday was led by nobody and we came from five corners around the school namely the mini campus, Osekita Phases 1 and 11; Iworoko (which contributed the highest number of participants) and the Main Gate. The five groups marched to the main gate independently and met there at different times of about 20 minutes’ interval.”
Another novel to the protest was the fact that it was unusually peaceful and there was hardly any inkling to the common violence. “We decided not to block the road because experiences have shown that when we do, the police would move in and disperse the students with teargas. At that time too, it will cease to be a peaceful protest. It could also lead to what happened the last time when students destroyed school property and looted the farm and we paid dearly for it,” the student also informed Sunday Tribune.
After the students had trooped to the main gate of the institution on Thursday morning in their hundreds, they took over the main gate. They blocked the gates and insisted that no one would gain entry into or exit from the institution. Members of staff, who had arrived at the campus for work, could not move near the gates because of the palpable level of anger of the students, and they therefore stayed about a kilometre away and watched proceedings.
They chanted songs in anger and did not hide their disdain for both the management of the institution and the Ekiti State government. Some of them, who spoke with newsmen, said they were angry because the extant (new) policy was “anti-people and undemocratic and did not put the poor ones among us into consideration.” Some of the student’s placards said it all: “Save our souls” and “Consider our parents.” They also branded some of the shuttle buses that ply EKSU.
Some of the students also said that their main argument includes the fact that the decision of the management of the institution to make them pay their fees before they could receive lectures did not conform with the policy of the state government to make education affordable to all. “The policy of the state government is that our fees should be N50,000 per session but none of us pays less than N90,000 as fees per session. There is a fault somewhere.”
They said they are also angry that the university has no student union government in place that could represent them at meetings where some of these decisions are taken. They contended that “for almost two years now, they have been telling us that soon, they would restore our union but this has remained a dream. They don’t want us to have a common front or a say in how the institution is run. Is this place a kindergarten?” Another student alleged that “they had designed their policy to ensure that there is no umbrella body under which the students could gather. They don’t want us to have a rallying point or a leader that could gather the students together.”
That activities were paralysed in the institution is an understatement because the management staff members had to move to the university guest house for an emergency meeting over the development. Some of the students even alleged that some senior and management staff members of the institution were hurriedly ferried out of the campus before the students could get at them.
However, this contention was dismissed as implausible by some other students. According to the students, “the university is non-residential and since our protest started early, none of those big men of the university would have been on campus by the time it started.”
The students said when the state government organised the education summit, among other things, it was agreed that the three universities in the state should be consolidated into one, “and that is how Ekiti State University came about.” Speaking further, they said “the argument then was that the state needs only one university it can fund well but are they doing that now? What we have now is no fees, no lectures.”
But the university authorities would have none of that and has insisted that any student that refuses to pay the required fees would not be allowed in the institution. The Vice Chancellor, Professor Patrick Oladipo Aina, who reacted to the protests, was not a happy man. “This protest is embarrassing and illegitimate. It is uncalled for. It is also a surprise to me because we have a feedback mechanism,” Professor Aina told newsmen on Thursday. He said “we will instil civilised culture among the students and I insist on that.
The students must put across their grievances in a civilised manner, why take to the streets?”
He confirmed that the trouble this time “has something to do with a new policy of the institution which is no fees no lectures; it used to be no fees no exams.” He said “we took this step because the school is being owed over N2billion” in unpaid fees over the years. He lamented that thousands students had graduated from the 31-year-old institution without paying their fees but assured that “I know it is difficult but we are going to trace them and we are already on that.”
On why students could be protesting over a simple rule: ‘Pay your fees’, the Vice Chancellor said: “The normal thing is that within two weeks of resumption, students are expected to have paid their fees but here in EKSU, the situation I met is different. The university is 31 years now and they are used to not paying fees.” He added that “I think that is what they are used to because out of the estimated 14,500 regular students, just about 1,200 have paid after five weeks of resumption.”
Prof Aina ruled out payment in instalments by the students, saying “no part payment because we have to provide electricity, water and other amenities just as we also develop infrastructure, ICT and other requirements. Besides, we don’t pay salary by instalments.” He clarified that “those who cannot pay have the opportunity to take a leave of absence. Those who do not take this step and do not pay their fees after two semesters will forfeit their studentship. The students know this. We cannot allow non-students in our campus.”
Reacting to the allegations of hidden charges they said shot their fees to about N90,000 and above as against the N50,000 announced by the state government, Professor Aina said “there are no hidden charges but some additional charges that are normal in all institutions.” He gave instances such as the fact that “Geology students would go on field work, we are not supposed to pay for that; medical students cannot be trained with just N50,000 annual fees just as engineering students and so on are expected to pay for field work, excursions and the like. So these are not hidden charges.”
Explaining further, Professor Aina pointed out that “we remain the state university that charges the lowest fees in the South West,” adding that “in actual fact, the fees they are paying remain the same, the difference is that we had to codify our payment system to ensure that the money don’t go to private pockets as it used to when they were paying through the back door.”
It was gathered that in the absence of a students’ union executive, selected faculty presidents had met with the university authorities on ways to resolve the matter. But the students have insisted that they would remain in protest until the policy is reversed while Professor Aina said there is no going back on the policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment