The students of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology will hold a protest on Tuesday against what they described as an “exorbitant demand of school fees worth over N100,000 aside other exorbitant fees set up by the school management as well as the penalty of no exams for defaulters."
For the protest which is tagged: “We are students, not money making machines,” the organiser asked students to troop out en mass on Tuesday morning at the MTN Stand by 8am for the peaceful protest match.
In fliers seen on social media, the organisers described as “disheartening that as students will be caused to have extra years and many forced to give up on continuing their studies because of outrageous fees.”
The students described the vice chancellor as “a dream killer”, maintaining that ESUT was not a private institution for such exorbitant fees.
“It is the Vice Chancellor who is causing students to organise multiple protests, something I'm very sure of is that he would not be able to control it when it sets in, a flex of military power on the students will only cause casualties," a source said.
In an internal memo from the Chairman Examination Monitoring Committee of the university to heads of department dated May 4, 2023 with ref: No ESUT/EMC/2023/01 and “First Semester 2023 Examination Monitoring Guide”, the university insisted that only students who had paid their school fees and have their identity cards are allowed to write the examination.
The memo signed by the committee’s chairman partly read: “As the first semester examinations commence on Tuesday 9th May, 2023 all academic staff and students are hereby reminded of the under listed directives:
“All Invigilators/ examiners should liaise with the Heads of Department to ensure that only genuine students of the university who have paid their school fees and have their identity cards are allowed to write the examination. Every student must wear their identity cards.
“Students who show evidence of fees payment but whose names did not appear in the ICT-list of students who have paid their fees may be allowed to sit for an examination. However, the scripts of such students must be separated and kept with the Dean of the faculty. Until their claim is confirmed such scripts must not be marked by the Lecturer.
“The practice of submitting a non-ICT list that contains the results of fees defaulters is no longer allowed as this has led to mismanagement of their school fees by many students. Moreover since only results of students whose names appear in the ICT-list can be uploaded in the university portal, any other results used in the computation of students' results will not be allowed."
“Students who fail to pay their fees after the portal is closed must not be allowed to sit for any examination in the university. Where such students wittingly sit for any examination, their scripts MUST not be marked. Any lecturer who marks such scripts will be penalized,” it partly reads.