The federal government has given provisional licence for the establishment of a private institution, Skyline University, in Kano State.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) gave the approval Wednesday at its meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa.
Currently Nigeria has 163 universities: 47 are state owned, 42 are owned by the federal government and 73 are privately owned.
In a related development, the Minister of State for Education, Anthony Anwukah, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, said it is wrong for federal universities to charge tuition fees, but they can fix other fees.
According to Mr Anwukah, “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 stop.”
Mr Anwukah said university councils and management should be able to fix the fees students should pay which should be affordable and acceptable to the students.
“But students can pay other auxiliary fees but not in excess. The federal government does not determine fees for private and state universities, they only take responsibility for fees paid in the federal universities,” he said.
Meanwhile, the FEC said the National Universities Commission (NUC) through the ministry should provide a status report to it on all universities in Nigeria, in terms of their performance and quality of staff.
The directive affects private, state and federal universities in the country.
Source: www.premiumtimesng.com
