After paying the tuition fee of N95,000 each, the students were confronted with payment of departmental  levies.

Of course, the issue of accommodation is an expected phenomenon and parents were prepared for that in addition to the tuition fee which ranges between N35,000, N45,000 and N65,000 or so.

What the parents and their children (students) were not prepared for was the various departmental levies which added in pilling up the money payable before a student could resume and be accommodated after clearance.

So, parents, students and their relatives were complaining to whoever wanted to listen, against the sudden swelling up of the monies payable by each intake in the first step of their journey to obtaining tertiary education.

The timing of the development, coming after the Lagos State governor slashed school fees of the Lagos State University to N25,000 after a protracted strike by the students over high fees, and when Governor Ibikunke Amosun of Ogun State approved the reduction in tuition fee being paid by students across board in the state’s tertiary institutions, was seen by observers as wrong but the helpless students and their parents had no option than to comply in the interest of their children’s quest for tertiary education.

Senator Amosun of Ogun State had slashed tuition fee in the state’s tertiary institutions by 61 per cent.

A statement by the state’s Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Barrister Segun Odubola said medical students of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) who were paying N301,610 are now to pay N176,596, a 41.4 per cent reduction while those of the Faculty of Arts in the same University now pay N81,112 instead of N126,540, a 35.9 per cent reduction across board among others.

Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed had also in 2012, effected a reduction of KWASU tuition fee from about N150,000 or so to N95,000 which received applause  from  parents, students and their relatives.

So, when new students of the current academic session were confronted with payment of departmental levies outside tuition and accommodation fees, thus swelling up the collective amount to be paid by each student at the end of the day,  most parents became worried with some of them complaining to whoever cared to listen even though they couldn’t afford not to pay in the interest of their children’s pursuit for tertiary institution.

So, only God knows how Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed came to know about the development and as a listening governor that he is, he instantly directed the state’s university to discontinue payment of the various levies.

Not only that, the governor  further  directed the authorities to refund all such monies collected so far in this academic session.

Governor Ahmed in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Dr. Muyideen Akorede, said as a responsible governor, the bay decided to cancel the departmental levies following complaints by students and their families that they could not afford the current levies inview of the preventing economic situation in the country.

According to Dr. Akorede, the governor’s reduction of school fees from about N150,000 to N95,000 in 2012 was to reduce the burden placed on parents by their children’s tertiary education.

Admitting that tertiary education especially in specialized and Science courses is expensive all over the world, the governor stressed that he would continue to find innovative ways of making education more affordable to all, adding that adequate notice and convenient installment options should be provided by the University authorities when introducing levies as that would make it easier for students, parents and guardians to pay.

And in compliance with the governor’s directive, information reaching us indicate that moves are  already on to effect refund of the collected levies by the KWASU authorities.

That is good for the polity lest room be created for the opposition to bank on to do what they know how  to do best, politically.