By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The Workers and Youths Solidarity Network (WYSN) has condemned the N50,000 acceptance fee being charged newly admitted students by the management of the University of Ibadan (UI) and has demanded the university to immediately halt the collection of the “fraudulent fee” but should adequately refund the ones already collected.

WYSN is insisting that no university should charge any fee from students to accept the admission offered them, in line with the directive of the House of Representatives on the eve of 2020, that any form of acceptance fee by the universities should be scrapped.

In a statement by its Secretary, Damilola Owot, WYSN rejected the payment of acceptance fees in public universities, and called for a one-day protest by students of the institution.

The statement part reads: “We consider this singular act of UI management as an attempt to deter students of the common and ordinary working people from access to the quality education they deserve! Hence, we call on the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and the University of Ibadan Students’ Union to immediately declare a one-day lecture boycott and mass protest to press home this demand.

“We refer to the statement published on the website of the University of Ibadan, calling on the newly-admitted students to pay a non-refundable sum of N50,000 to accept the admission offered to them.

“We can also recall that in 2020 and as reported by ThisDay Newspaper, the House of Representatives ordered the cancellation of all forms of acceptance fees in federal universities and ordered the refund of such fees to students that year. We also recorded that some schools are obliged to that policy.

“However, we are shocked as this fee miraculously found its way back into the University of Ibadan system where students are mandated to pay a whopping N50,000 as an acceptance fee. We condemn in totality, this dubious and fraudulent attempt to milk-dry the new intakes in the quest to get higher education.

“Likewise, we see this as an attempt to deny the children of working people who live on a meagre N30,000 minimum wage access to quality education. This also shows the current level of the Nigerian education sector which prioritizes profits instead of developing the innate potential of youths and young people.”

The group observed that in the past, fees and other arbitrary levies denied creative, intellectual, intelligent and innovative individuals access to education that could further polish their skills for national development because they couldn’t afford to pay the fees.