The former vice chancellor of University of Ibadan, Professor Idowu Olayinka has enjoined the Federal government to stop using the Nigerian commonwealth to service the elites while the downtrodden are being neglected.
Olayinka made this submission via his social media page while reacting to the recent increment of the unity school fees by the government.
The Professor of Geology in his statement questioned the decision of the federal government in running primary/secondary schools as against the Federal Presidential System of government of USA which the country copied.
He wrote: On the new scale of fees for Federal Unity Colleges
We run and operate a warped Federalism. Two issues that readily come to my mind are :
(i). First, what is the business of the Federal Government running primary/ secondary schools? Is this the case in the USA where we copied our Federal Presidential system of Government?
(ii). Second, is it possible for children who attended our poorly resourced public primary schools to gain entrance into these Unity Colleges? I may be wrong but I think they are largely elitist schools whose scale of fees should be compared to what obtain in private secondary schools. They are boarding schools and the cost of feeding is probably still being heavily subsidized by the proprietor (i.e. Federal Government).
There may still be a lot of implicit subsidy being borne by the Federal Government. I learnt that at The International School University of Ibadan, parents pay #188,000 per term for each child as Boarding fee; yet the Unity Colleges charge #30,000 per term for each child for Boarding in the newly revised Scale of Fees.
What I don’t like is to use the commonwealth to service the elites who are comparatively better off on the average while the downtrodden are not looked after.
As a former ES NUC once mentioned when we were together at a Board Meeting of Pan African University, “When it comes to money matters, no sentiments.”
Abel Idowu Olayinka,
Department of Geology,
University of Ibadan.
