I am sure that if you did not get any bbm broadcast yesterday, you got the one below or something close to it;
" Students from Babcock University have sent mails complaining about the exorbitant fees they are being made to pay to get an education. The university just released the school fees for the next session and some of the students feel its outrageous. See it below…
(1) Accounting- N1.5million
(2) Nursing- N1million
(3) Law- N2million
(4) Medicine- N3million
(5) Others- N860,000
The students are scared to protest in their school because they could get suspended. Babcock is a Christian University and claims to be a non-profit organization, so students don’t understand why they have to pay such huge amounts for school fees. I think it’s ridiculous. You pay N3million a session to become a doctor and when you eventually get a job, you make less than N200 thousand a month…doesn’t make much sense to me. What do you guys think?"
Yesterday was hot with the above bbm broadcast which according to many was taken from the publication made on LIB. There are many things in life which does not make sense but there
are questions to ask. There are answers to be given. We will not get overly emotional before we have examined and considered the facts. The fact we know is what was published. We will wait to hear from the school that is if they feel any public explanation is necessary because they may claim they don't owe you that. But even before they explain if at all they will, let us establish some facts.
Babcock university is a private university and not a public university. In the school guiding document which the students may have signed perhaps together with their parents, was it written anywhere that school fees is permanently pegged at a particular amount? Am sure the answer is NO. If the answer is no, then it means that they can do as they please.
To consider another issue, most parents who sent their children to babcock University are parents who have the money to spend. Fine there may be categories of money spenders here. They include the children of those in government whose parents make money both from what is theirs by right and what is there by stealing. Am sure this category of students are not amongst those complaining, because even if it becomes ten million per session, their parents will pay. There is a second category of students in babcock. They include the children of the rich in society whose parents are CEO, heavy contractors, drug dealers, but not in government. No matter what happens, this ones will pay so they are not amongst the ones who are complaining. But there is a third set , they are the children of top executives whose parents are not CEO or contractors or Drug traffickers but are top executives who earn like eight hundred thousand to what ever millions a month. What ever they get, they get by salary not because they own the company. This set of people at first may not be interested in buying admission for their children. They do so out of compulsion. May be the child had tried Unilag post jamb like three times and never made it. And when the father insist on the child trying again, the mother comes up with a story of how all her friends children have entered university. They quarrel and request to know why the father will refuse to take the child to babcock where admission is not by intellectual battle but rather by money Language. In the end, and just for peace to reign, the father will agree. To such men, they work by budgets. Right now, those protesting are those in this category.
I feel their pain as much as I am human. But truthfully, they can't claim that they dint see it coming. The private universities in Nigeria where grated license to operate without government interference in the area of school fees. That is why its a private university. If cost of living is on the rise in Nigeria every day, then the school will raise fees to make sure they meet their obligation to the students. Those who may have a right to complain are students who are already in the school not new intake.
Why are the students complaining now? A university is a self training field not a glorified secondary boarding house. The university is a place where you see the good, the bad and the ugly and you are allowed to make your choice and not that choice being made for you. In a private university, you are not allowed to make your choice, this choices are made for you. I head, you are told when to sleep, when to wake up, you must attend chapel and compulsory church programs, you can't use a phone or bb, etc these things are disgusting. How then does the child grow with an independent mind? When will he begin to decide for himself? If you remote a persons life in a university, when then will he start making his own choices? In his office when he start working? Why are the students complaining? The choice has always been made for them, now another one has been made for them by way of school increment, why are they shouting?
That broadcast says it is meant to be a non profit organization, says who? This is what Wikipedia has " Babcock University is a private Christian co-educational Nigerian university owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Nigeria..." where is non profit written? If its a non profit organization that means all the lecturers and non teaching staff must be volunteers. But is that the case? Of course no. The school will increase fees when it discovers that what it makes can no longer pay salary, maintain facilities or increase same and do other things. They have a right to it. Its a choice thing and not a police case.
Do not get me wrong. Am not saying people must pay through their nose to get an education. What I am saying is simple, once you decide to give up the hard way of jamb and post jamb for the easy way of pay to get admitted, Know that every action has its own ripple effect. Freedom comes with responsibilities. You had the freedom of admission,take up the responsibility of paying your school fees without complaining. If you are not happy with it, you have a choice.
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