MAPOLY Risks Losing Students, As Unions Raise Concern Over Delay In Tuition Fees

ABEOKUTA – Concerned stakeholders of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta have expressed worry over the delay in the release of tuition fees for 2023/2024 academic sessions.

It would be recalled that the management since resumption of the current academic calendar on 27th of December, 2023 has failed to release the amount for tuition fees of different departments.

The stakeholders are the Academic Staff Union of Nigeria Polytechnic, ASUP, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnic, SSANIP and Non-Academic Staff Union, NASU.

Checks by THE ENCOUNTER NEWS revealed that the management and the Ogun State government are deliberating on whether to increase the tuition fee or not.

Speaking on the issue, ASUP Chairman of the institution, Tomisin Adegunle who described the situation as unfortunate, said the delay may be dangerous, saying some students might spend their school fees.

He appealed to the government and the school management to agree on the amount before it is too late.

He said, “We feel that, it is rather unfortunate. I wonder what is taking the management and council this long to do the right thing. It does not make any sense. It is now over five weeks since resumption, normally school fees should have been fixed before resumption and students pay and when you know that you’re IGR reliant institution, you should give it a priority.

“The danger in it, is that some of these students; from experience could have collected that money and by the time you eventually say come and pay they would have spent it, it would now become a problem for those students and their parents. If you look at it in any way it doesn’t make sense why they should delay it or make it linger this more”, he stated.

Adegunle stated “We know that before resumption, we should have done the right thing at the right time. There must have been agreement between management and government. The students should have known what and what they were paying”.

He said some students due to non-release of the school fees, does not know that the session has begun, insisting that some students are yet to take the resumption seriously.

He said “As I said, early to bed early to rise, if they’re collecting 120 that the students have agreed to go ahead, then we would have moved on. We have some expenses we want to do, some students don’t believe that school has really taken off and lectures are already going on towards the middle of the semester already now and so when they’ve not paid they didn’t take it seriously.

“If they have started collecting the money, then the students would have been coming to school fully and taking it seriously and if they’re not collecting that 120 let us know they’re taking 150 put it there whatever the outcome, we will see how we would have settled it between five to four weeks and a lot of things could have happened”.

To SSANIP Secretary, Tunde Abiodun, the situation showed how unserious the institution is.

He said with the coming of the Joint Matriculation Board, JAMB Examination, some students might apply and even leave the school.

He said “since resumption, the institution is yet to determine what students want to pay, it shows how serious or unserious it is.

“We feel that this thing has effects not only on the students because if students have money with them to pay and you’re telling them that you’ve not determined what they are to pay, what did you expect them to do with the money, quite a number of them would have spent it”.

He added ” We are more concerned now that a new JAMB is on and the students we have admitted already might go for JAMB again and look elsewhere and that would definitely have an effect on the institution, so we’re calling on the management and the council to do the needful.

“This is the time; like we have told them delay is dangerous, as long as they’re delaying this thing it means that it’s going to have negative effects on the institution so we’re calling on them to do the right thing now. Whatever decision they’ve made as regards the school fees they should just let the student know so that they can go ahead and pay so that we won’t start running helter skelter as to how to get the institution running and have a smooth academic activities so that is our acquisition,” he stated.

NASU Chairman, Adeleye Tajudeen also urged the management and the council to act fast, saying the institution might lose students to other schools.

Reacting, the Polytechnic’s Head of Public Relations Officer and Protocol, Mr. Yemi Ajibola appealed to the union leaders to exercise patience with the management.

Ajibola pointed out that, the management was avoiding a clash with the students and reviewing the tuition fees with the current economic reality.

He said, “We are trying to avoid crises with the students. We have tried to reach a logical agreement with the student’s union, but they are not taking the path of reasoning.

“But we have resumed discussion again, and I can assure everyone that, on/or before Friday, the school fees for all categories of students will be released.”