obeski13: Its unfortunate that a lot of people advocating for d introduction of school fees are ignorant of d way economies of those countries who charges school fees are structured.in nigeria only less than 20% of income earners earn wages or salaries that is commensurate with d economic situation.i.e what is earned as minimum wage is barely a living wage.whereas in those countries they mentioned what people earn is in tandem wit d economic situation.what social services that are suppose to be free or subsidized that we dont pay for here.is it d inflated electrity bill that we pay for without even having d light,not mentioning petrol we buy to power ou generator.is it water that we provide for ourselves,or d street roads that most residents contribute money to make it motorable.what is govt subsiding for d citizens.it is only in nigeria that u pay house rent of a yr in advance.is it food that is subsidize?in those countries mentioned govt subsidize food, people dont av to generate their energy or water.house rent is monthly or weekly..is it not frm dis meagre amt that over 70% of income earners will want to provide all dis services.what will be d function of govt then?people are already overburdened.any call for fees introduction is an act of evil and wickedness.

Samakinr:
....that's the truth bro. My own father was a retired headmaster, but he managed to send 2 children to medical school, one for pharmacy, and another for English art. Thanks be to OAU, which made if affordable. That was obviously the only value i have from this nation (and i appreciate it)....but why then shouldn't i be at the fore front of campaigning for an affordable education,

sean079:

Egbon, thank you for dis simple analysis. citizen of dos coun3 dat are paying for uni edu are dos dat are really academic incline not because of means of livelihood lyk what we av in naija. ppl struggles in2 all dis uni cos dey want gud life in naija. moreso just a yr r two yrs employment engagemt will pay all dis fees in dos coun3. so overdere u c ppl making moni, living gud life n dem no send any yauyau uni edu. let dem stop corruptn so dis cash can circulate everyone. den u c any1 dat want uni edu can go ahead get it but greedyness n lootin won't let dem do d ryt fin. make unah just check d worth of all dis politician n compare to deir counterpart where dey re paying high for uni edu

mannyiyke: U're even d one dat has a warped mentality. I support Appartheist's points 100 percent. We've oil; we've it all, yet nothing is moving fine. It seems we're cursed with bad leaders whom u support foolishly with ur nonsensical argument dat doesn't hold water!

manutdadex: u don graduate abi? No wonda u fit get mouth talk..think abt d woman who sells bolli and groundnut on d street b4 u open ur mouth here! If dem try am...na me dey pay my skool fees o...make dem no smoke ciga for fillin station o

iwonbaoko: By nature human beings compare themselves to others. No one wants to feel inferior or cheated.Take my young lad you place a plate of food in front of him and what does he do ,eat? No! he starts looking to see what everyone else has got. OH his big brother has "TWO MEAT" why does he have "ONE MEAT" and so he starts Aluta, at that age imagine!! His mothers say "sorry" she carries the food to the kitchen takes the meat and cuts it into four pieces and returns it to him he is placated,smug even.He starts taunting his big brother...

Apatheist:
LMAO.
Do you know they don't pay school fees in Finland?
Do you know they don't have oil?

If we are to pay fees we should adopt the bursary and student loan system used in the USA.

iwonbaoko: By nature human beings compare themselves to others. No one wants to feel inferior or cheated.Take my young lad you place a plate of food in front of him and what does he do ,eat? No! he starts looking to see what everyone else has got. OH his big brother has "TWO MEAT" why does he have "ONE MEAT" and so he starts Aluta, at that age imagine!! His mothers say "sorry" she carries the food to the kitchen takes the meat and cuts it into four pieces and returns it to him he is placated,smug even.He starts taunting his big brother . That is the story of our young people who want to have DEGREES "by force" and so now you have 1000 students occupying what was designed for 50-100. They come out with degrees but will soon realize their degrees are not worth anything they have many pieces of "small meat". Protesting will not change much . If people protest too much government will just leave them with their extra meat illusion but the employers know better.

The rich people send their children abroad with some getting Masters degrees at the ages of 21 22 23. They have ONE MEAT but it is a very big one indeed. It is not a level playing field;most people are in the middle of snarling traffic whilst you have another lane like BRT lane for a few. Government alone cannot fund university education Even if government can only afford to pay for 50000 so be it let those 50000 be of the best quality,the biggest meat. This idea that it should be a free for all is simply not sustainable

iwonbaoko: By nature human beings compare themselves to others. No one wants to feel inferior or cheated.Take my young lad you place a plate of food in front of him and what does he do ,eat? No! he starts looking to see what everyone else has got. OH his big brother has "TWO MEAT" why does he have "ONE MEAT" and so he starts Aluta, at that age imagine!! His mothers say "sorry" she carries the food to the kitchen takes the meat and cuts it into four pieces and returns it to him he is placated,smug even.He starts taunting his big brother . That is the story of our young people who want to have DEGREES "by force" and so now you have 1000 students occupying what was designed for 50-100. They come out with degrees but will soon realize their degrees are not worth anything they have many pieces of "small meat". Protesting will not change much . If people protest too much government will just leave them with their extra meat illusion but the employers know better.

The rich people send their children abroad with some getting Masters degrees at the ages of 21 22 23. They have ONE MEAT but it is a very big one indeed. It is not a level playing field;most people are in the middle of snarling traffic whilst you have another lane like BRT lane for a few. Government alone cannot fund university education Even if government can only afford to pay for 50000 so be it let those 50000 be of the best quality,the biggest meat. This idea that it should be a free for all is simply not sustainable

jaryeh: @iwonbaoko, proffemi and others supporting this tuition fee introduction, the fact remains that government has more than enough funds to finance tertiary education fully without us paying a dime.
We were all in this country when the president himself confirmed that $20b was missing. Mind you, this is just a "token" out of what they loot every blessed day. They keep deceiving us with figures that are never real just to console us. It's high time we stood up and fight for our right.
If government refuses to fund education, what then will it do with our oil money? Build roads that it is already planning to also privatize and get more money to loot? Pls educate me.

iwonbaoko: I sympathize with your sentiment but I am disappointed with your resistance to logic. I want what is good for my country.It is to my advantage if the youth have a better deal but I will tell you a few things for free.Education is not all about going to university and even when university education was free (in the days of Segun Okeowo)and we were given free food and had cleaners come to clean our rooms etc it was not for everybody. Never was and never will be There was a limited supply of university places from day 1.

The starting point of educating any population is literacy. Free education upto secondary school is a fair contract with government. Even in America they will bargain with you to join the Army before they pay your tuition if you return from Kabul After secondary school if you join the police,customs civil service etc with O or A level you will get plenty of "education" during your career. Look at the biographies of our founding fathers or elders like Afe Babalola, Awo etc they did not get free university education many worked as clerks or with compnies like UAC
Looking at it from a national benefit perspective government should educate a population for reasons on national interest not idealism.The focus on university education does not help us if we have white men managing the National Assembly Complex,building our roads,bridges and other major civil engineering projects.More recently it is Chinese "engineers" . FYI most of these people are not graduates. Government needs to focus resources on skill acquisition not certificate acquisition. It has always been the case that Nigerians saw "education" in university as a gateway to a better life. Over the next 20 years there will be multiple opportunities in our power sector which is set to explode.Sadly all our graduate engineers are worse than useless and many of those jobs will go overseas. Many of these so called graduates got into university by fraud and often graduate by fraud. Without fear of contradiction I can assert anywhere that very few Nigerian graduates of today can write an essay comparable to a secondary school student in the 70s. Any so called education spending by goverment should focus on upgrading the skills of those MOST LIKELY to find employment and so government should not be paying for Law,Politics,Botany and all that nonsense.
In the oil sector today we have hundreds of Filipinos taking thousands of dollars monthly are they graduates? Even to be a "maritime cook" requires certification and we have White Cooks from France in our off-shore facilities on huge wages. Are they graduates? No one pays anybody for what they know but for what they do or can do.Skills skills skills. Whether it is truck driving or crane operation or deep water welding those are the areas where I believe government should put our scarce resources

jaryeh: ...Government should put other alternatives in place and watch University aspirants decrease...

proffemi:

How much is this "oil money" you guys keep talking about? If you need to be educated, why don't you do a Google search for the GDP of every big petroleum producer, and divide by their population??

The truth is that you guys CHOOSE not to see reason. You say "government has more than enough funds to finance tertiary education fully without us paying a dime". Since you're a university student, I expect you to provide the evidence to back this big claim. I will be disappointed if you are comfortable just making wild claims that you have no way of proving just because, well, it sounds cool.

Wake up bro, your country is not a rich as you think.

rutchiekens:

Shut up!!!

If 3 states is larger than Finland. Then u just answered Nigeria's problem... Most Nigerians know the problem but they don't want to face it. Sooner or later Nigerians will have no choice but to face it

ogtavia:

Very strong points my brother,but I beg to differ a bit,u mentioned filipino cooks who aren't graduates and all d offshore thing,before they employed filipinos,didn't they see Nigerians, Nigerians with the same experience and certificatn wnt be given d treatment dis foreign ppl receive why?pls tell me...u mentioned chinese engineers and I ask myself how in d hell Lebanese and chinese engineers get to own constructn firms in dis country,mistreat their workers and get away it and on top of dt,get mouth watering contracts,its a ploy forr corruptn,I dnt think u reside in Nigeria,correct me if I am wrong,all thoose ppl clamouring for tuition dnt have wards in Nigerian schools,nt everyone needs a university degree u say,yet the gulf between a polytechnic certificate and university degree grows wider everyday,so my brother,all dis USA this,chinese dt won't work,d government allowed dis expatriates to come work here without considering our local content,look,u seem to av a bias against Nigerian graduates,u say our graduates are useless,so u think everyone who has a foreign degree is better than d Nigerian graduate,you are wrong,I strongly disagree and no matter how much you insult me,I will nt change my standpoint,so in ur mind,if tuition is introduced,university educatn becomes more expensive and way out of the rich of d common populace,d educational problem will be solved in this country and Nigeria will become a good place to live in?tuition will solve corruptn,tuition will enlighten our minds,tuition will make lecturers teach better,tuition will create jobs for graduates,tuition will stop government officials from receiving bribe,tuition will addreess the university and polytecchnic bias,I am nt sure you live in Nigeria and iif u are,well its a pity,Nigerian Universities still produce graduates that can compete anywhere in d world,why must the government sEe d imposition of fees as a way to beetter things...remember ETF that became TETFUND,look its beyond tuition,let our leaders stop making good governance about money,Nigeria isn't such a complex society.

jaryeh:
How about the other parts of my post? At least $20b is more than all we pay as school fees, and that is just a "token" out of what we have (and what they loot). We do not have up to 40 federal institutions in Nigeria. In fact, during the ASUU strike, we were made to realize that there were just 67 public Universities in Nigeria - federal and state Universities. If I'm not mistaken, $20b is not less than 3 trillion naira which they said was not available for ASUU the last time they went on strike.

Greenified:
Over-population is not an excuse, what we ask for is not too much but simple and clear...
"We want to enjoy what our wicked leaders enjoyed too" #free education

Greenified:
Over-population is not an excuse, what we ask for is not too much but simple and clear...
"We want to enjoy what our wicked leaders enjoyed too" #free education

proffemi:

Government should this, government should that.
This is a big part of our problem. We view government as this big Santa Claus that should do everything for us. I am not suggesting that government should not perform its role, but we are just too lazy and self-entitled as a people.

Take this education issue: government already spends a huge chunk educating you (there have been different figures thrown around as the average cost of educating a student. I have heard N2 million per annum, a figure that makes sense to me for an engineering course. However, if we go with LASG, it is allegedly N500k). How much do you pay for tuition currently? So you think government has not already done enough for you by paying the balance? What else would you want government to do for you? Change your diapers?

jaryeh:
We clamour for government interventions because we pay taxes and we've not received anything significant in return. What do I say we get in return? Is it stable electricity? Infrastructures? Good health care services? No. But what they want now is to still withdraw the little we get from them instead of improving on it.

We have 67 public Universities, there are not-up-to-30,000 students in each, if it costs N500,000 per annum to cater for each student's tuition - excluding accomodation and feeding. If we calculate this in total, it results in N1.005 trillion. This is just a token out of the missing $20b. And pls, don't talk about our annual budget, it's not up to what they loot/mismanage in 6 months.