House Of Reps Charges Committee To Stop UNN Proposed Laptop Levy On Students

The House of Representatives, has charged its Committees on Education (Basic and Tertiary) to stop the compulsory N75, 000 laptop fee foisted on students of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), by the university authority. The resolution followed the unanimous adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Rep. Bashir Babale (APC-Kano).

Moving the motion, Babale decried the university’s policy of charging every new student a compulsory fee of N75, 000 for the acquisition of laptop computers, adding that “this policy is arbitrary, inhuman and so sad that they are making access to education difficult for the people. Nigerians are anxious to study, in order to contribute, to the growth of the nation, but this policy makes it difficult”, Babale added.

The lawmaker, who pointed out that education remained a vehicle to national development, stressed a need to correct the current imbalance in the sector.

Many Nigerians, according to him, are living below the poverty line and are finding it difficult to pay the compulsory and outrageous laptop fee.

Babale said he decided to urge the House to stop the compulsory laptop levy, so as not to deprive Nigerians from having access to quality education.

“In a situation where young people are complaining of educational imbalance, how an institution can come up with this kind of policy,” he queried.

He further decried a situation where some tertiary institutions in the country solely depend on students for the general running of the overhead cost of the schools, revealing that “students are paying fees to construct roads and culverts in the universities.”

It would be recalled that the students of the school had called on the Education Minister to look into the levy matter earlier this December.