The Federal Government has finally approved the establishment of a private university, Skyline University in Kano. It would be recalled that application for the establishment of the university by Skyline University has been on for the last year years.
Speaking to news men today, Wednesday shortly after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, the minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwuka said that FEC approved the issuance of provisional license for the university.
According to him, the National University Commission (NUC), had gone through the rigorous verification of the claims as to the application for the establishment of the institution and that the NUC then sent a recommendation to the ministry of education, which in turn presented in the request to FEC for its approval.
Professor Anwuka said that while making the approval, FEC directed the NUC through the ministry of education to provide a status report to FEC on all the nation’s universities in terms of their performance, be they private, state or federal.
“We stressed on quality of staff on the various universities.
“And then FEC discussed the issue of school fees in the various universities and noted that as of law, no federal university should charge tuition fees. And, we understand some universities now charge fees per course unit and we are going to make sure that we investigate that properly and make it stops.
“But students can pay other auxiliary fees but not in excess. Various university councils and management should be able to fix what fees students should pay that is affordable and acceptable to the students. That is the position.
“The federal government does not determine fees for private and state universities; it only takes responsibility for fees paid in the federal universities.” [myad]