UI Mgt Vows Not To Reduce Fees Despite Student’s Protest

Amidst protest by medical students of the University of Ibadan (UI), Ibadan, the University management has insisted that there is no going back on the fees increase.

Ahead of the new session that begins next week, the institution’s Senate had on Wednesday, April 4 approved that management increase the fees for hostel accommodation, practicals and field work for appropriate faculties.

This decision did not go well with the students especially those at the College of Medicine who on Monday, April 9, led a protest for the school to rescind its decision.

In his reaction, the Vice-chancellor of the institution, Professor Idowu Olayinka told Channels Television that the new fees are a good compromise blaming the increase on the amount of rot that has to be fixed in the hostels across campus.

“As we speak we have 8,222 bed-spaces and the student population is about 27,000. So we can only accommodate about 30 percent of the students. We have even exceeded the carrying capacity of those students. A room originally designed for two students, now we put five of them there,” he said.

Olayinka added that all the faculties involved in the increase had sensitised the students before the decision of the management was announced. According to him, the school management has not increased accomodation fees for the past 11 years.

“The facilities are overstretched and we felt the condition under which the students live requires a lot of improvement. For a very long time, students were paying N90 per beds pace. That continued in the 70’s till 2001 when the University decided to increase the cost of bed-space from N900 to N3,500. In 2005, we increased from N3,500 to N10,000. In 2007, we increased again from N10,000 to N14,000.

“This is what we have been operating with. For the past 11year,s we have not tampered with the cost of bedspace in any of our undergraduates halls of residence,” he added.

The medical students during their protest on Monday, however, described the increase as an astronomical. They said the amount paid by both pre-clinical and clinical students at the College of Medicine would adversely affect their programme.