Nigeria Content Online

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has promised
to review the school fees paid by part time students of the Ambrose
Alli University, Ekpoma. He also promised to hold a dialogue with full
time students over their fees after getting the facts on how much the
school earns and how much will be needed as subvention from the state
government to take the school to an enviable height.

Mr Oshiomhole, said this when he visited the
institution yesterday. He said he has agonised over what to do about
the institution as several efforts to get information on how it is run
in order to plan for the future has failed.

The governor’s presence in the institution was
greeted by the students with calls for reduction in their school fees.
He advised the students to nominate their representatives to air their
grievances and, one after the other, they came to say their schools
fees were on the high side. They said they were not consulted before
the increase was made and many of them were finding difficult to pay
the new fees.

Mr Oshiomhole said he visited the school to talk
directly with the students to hear their concerns and share views as
they have a right to know what is happening in their institution.

“The University was receiving a subvention of N150
million monthly, which was increased to an average of N205 million
monthly since we came on board,” he said.

He said the management of the school was requesting
for N310 million as monthly subvention, in addition to maintaining the
current school fees. “Up till now they have not been able to tell me
how many students are in the school, how much the school earns and what
it is spent on,” he said.

He said he asked the management of the school about
three times how much the school earns, and each time he was given a
different figure. The subvention to the university shocked the
students, who started leaving the hall in droves especially after the
governor had addressed their concerns on the school fees.

The governor however noted that the problems of the school were
beyond school fees, and promised to build two new hostels for the
institution and provide the school with two 42-seater buses to ease the
problem of transportation.