By Aliyu Baba Mohammed
The management of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria has greatly surprised her students over the payment schedule of Undergraduate Students released lately and signed by the University's registrar, Mallam Rabiu Samaila.
In a special bulletin released by the school management titled: "Approved New Registration Charges For Undergraduate Students," the new charges were seem to be extremely lower than what the students were expecting considering the economic realities in the country and the University's special case of financial downturn in recent times.
Apart from the government's new policies on education that are unfavorable to the operation of the University system across the country, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria was recently on the news for its inability to meet its financial obligations, until the intervention of the Federal and Kaduna State government. The university was said to have plunged into a financial crisis due to a court ruling in favour of some staff of the institution illegally sacked by the military administrator of the school in the mid-90s.
As if that wasn't enough, the institution's seat of power (Senate Building) was gutted by fire from a small room harbouring an electrical Distribution Board (DB) at the ground floor of the building in the main campus, Samaru, Zaria. According to video clips shared by the eyewitnesses, the building was seen engulfed by smoke as a result of the fire incident.
Despite this, the management of the school magnanimously pegged the school fees for the next academic session (2023/2024) between N60,000 and N80,000 as no department is seen having to pay up to N100,000, except for two levels of Dental Surgery (500 and 600 levels). In fact, even MBBS is between N92,000 and N95,000 only, for all the levels.
This is unlike its counterparts like Bayero University, and other Federal universities that recently introduced tuition fees, or skyrocketed their school fees for lack of reasonable funding from the government.
The students of the university went on jubilation upon receiving the payment schedule as they were expecting a heavier amount from the school considering a lot of happenings within and outside the University's coffers.
Some of the students who spoke to Troubleshooter Reporters expressed their appreciation to the school management for being so considerate in scheduling the registration fee. While others attributed the reasonable amount pegged to the Federal Ministry of Education as the governing board of the Federal universities were earlier dissolved by the President, Ahmed Bola Tinubu. They claimed that if the amount should be decided by the school management or its governing board, they students would have had to pay more.
"Every student of ABU is surprised with this good development, because everyone was expecting more than this considering the school's financial status in recent times and what is happening in other Federal Universities across the country. Meanwhile, we appreciate the stakeholders that put the price in a relatively affordable amount," a student said.
The students are expected to make their payment between the 2nd of December, 2023 and 13th of January, 2024.
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