The management of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) and the students union have agreed on new tuition fees following a downward review of the fees announced last week.
Officials of the university and students’ union leaders told newsmen on telephone the latest review followed a meeting involving them and other stakeholders on Friday.
“We are done with the meeting,” the Students’ Union President, Abiodun Oluwaseyi, stated in a text message he sent to newsmen Friday evening.
According to Oluseun, “300-500 level students will now pay N90,000 for indigenes and N100,000 for non-indigenes. The 200 level will remain N120,000 and N150,000 for indigenes and non-indigenes respectively and incoming 100 level indigenes will pay N140,000 while their non indigenes counterpart will pay N170,000.”
Newsmen reported how the university had in July announced that students who are indigenes of Oyo and Osun states would pay N200,000 while others would pay N250,000 from the 2018/19 session.
The announcement led to wild protests by groups of the students in Ogbomoso and Osogbo where the university has campuses.
Apparently influenced by these protests, the university through a mail to the students last week Friday from the office of the Registrar, Jacob Agboola, said the increment had been reviewed downward.
According to the mail, indigenes would pay N140,000 per session while others would pay N170,000.
But some students who spoke with newsmen then condemned the fees regime and the students’ union also threatened to sue the school.
It was against that backdrop that the management met leaders of the students on Friday.
Before the first increment of fees last year after the school was shut down for months by workers over poor funding, returning students who are indigenes of Oyo and Osun states paid N63,500 as tuition fee, while their non-indigene colleagues paid N72,500.
When the school reopened, the present 100-level students from Oyo and Osun states were charged N120,000 while the other 100-level students paid N150,000 as part of the resolution to improve internally generated revenue.
The owner Oyo and Osun state governments last week distanced themselves from the increment announced at that time.
The Registrar, Agboola and the institution’s spokesperson, Lekan Fadeyi, did not respond to calls at the time of filling this report. But Sunday Adewale, a professor and Dean of Students’ Affairs, confirmed the fees have further been slashed.
“Yes, that’s true… It has been reduced,” he said on telephone.
A member of the Governing Council and President of the alumni association, Onilede Solomon, described the new development as positive.
“It is a positive one. I actually facilitated it (the meeting between management and students’ leaders). As the president of Alumni Union and a member of the council, it our heritage. If everyone is tired, we can’t be tired. We have to contribute back to our alma mata.”
One of the student leaders, Fawole Isreal, said although they demanded total reversal, they accepted the new fee regime “in order to make sure justice is done to all parties and to maintain the standard of the school.”
The students union president, Oluwaseyi, appealed to the two state governments to “be more responsive to their responsibilities in the school.”
It was gathered that the meeting had in attendance representatives of the parents forum, Ogbomoso leaders, governing council, the alumni and student bodies.
