From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
National Universities Commission (NUC) has warned universities, particularly the privately owned ones, against the alleged practice of charging tuition fees in dollars.
Chris Maiyaki, the Acting Executive Secretary, NUC, gave the warning in Abuja, against the backdrop of reported statement by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) that some institutions are charging tuition fee in dollars.
Maiyaki, in an interaction with education correspondent in Abuja, said that NUC, as a regulatory body, frowns at such practice, and won’t hesitate to act against such institution.
He said; “No Nigerian University is allowed tuition fees in dollars. The Nigerian law actually prohibits any Nigerian entity to charge in dollars. When I got that report, I reached out to the institution in question and they gave further explanation to that. The explicit details and information is stated on their website which is accessible to all.
“The school explained that the dollar charge for foreign students alone. The same practice is applicable to Nigerian students in foreign institutions. “Ghana will charge a Nigerian student in dollars; Uganda with charge in dollars; Kenya will charge in dollars. As for our institutions, they are properly guided by law not to charge in dollars.”
Speaking further, Maiyaki appealed to University based unions especially the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to support the efforts of NUC improve the quality of curriculum content of the universities.
He, however, disagreed with the statement credited to ASUU members that they were not involved in the development and implementation of the Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS).
He explained that thousands of professors who are ASUU members as well as Vice Chancellors were involved in the development of the CCMAS document.
The NUC boss also listed some challenges confronting efficient service delivery of the commission to include; constant industrial unrest in universities which hinders delivery of quality teaching, slow pace of deployment of ICT facilities and its adaptation in teaching by
academics in the Nigerian University System (NUS), paucity of funds to train and retrain the needed manpower to move the system forward, and lack of state of the art equipment for renewed quality assurance activities.