ADMISSION FRAUD AT IBADAN POLY: An Ominous Sign Of Poor Funding Of Education!

For A United Struggle Of Education Workers And Students For Adequately Funded Public Education

(By Kabiru Saka, DSM, Ibadan Poly)

One of the most recent ugly developments in the polytechnic this year is the case of the over Two thousand (2000) prospectus students of the institution whose provisional admission was cancelled by the school management after they had already struggled to pay various obnoxious and outrageous fees like acceptance fee

Before now, the Polytechnic of Ibadan management used to ensure that the number of candidates expected to pay acceptance fees for full time programme either at the National Diploma or Higher National Diploma level did not exceed the admission quota given to the institution by the UTME and NBTE.

Unfortunately, situation this year is a total divergence from this practice. For instance, over 2000 candidates were denied of admission after each of them had already paid over N30,000 that covers the fee for acceptance (N12,800); Faculty registration (N1,200), Medical registration(N1,130); Change of course(N6,300); X-ray test(N1,400); Students Union due (N500).

The school management argued that since the number of candidate who paid for the acceptance fee is more than the admission quota, it was left with no other choice than to cancel the provision admission of some students by closing the portal for tuition fee payment immediately the admission quota was attained.

This was quite dubious and fraudulent. How could the school management continue to take the acceptance and other fees from students when it knew that the admission quota given to the institution had been exceeded?

It is obvious that the management deliberately trick the students to pay acceptance fee beyond its admission quota so as to be able to boost its internally generated revenue IGR especially as the institution had been condemned to a chronic crisis of underfunding particularly since the inception of the Senator Abiola Ajimobi-led administration in the state.

The problem of underfunding in the polytechnic of Ibadan is so bad that almost 40% of the salaries of the workers in the institution are reportedly paid through the IGR while the state government is only responsible for just 60% of it.

To the school management the solution to this mega fraud is to convert the affected students to part-time programme. We hold that such arrangement must not be imposed on students without giving them opportunity to choose whether they want the part-time programme or their money to be refunded. This is very important, because many of the affected students may not subscribe to the idea of the part-time programme as it is more expensive and require longer duration of study.

For us, the best solution that is capable of preventing this kind of problem from occurring in future is adequate and proper funding of the institution and public education in general with democratic control by elected representatives of workers and students in order to ensure significant expansion of facilities and adequate employment of competent, well-remunerated staff. With this, sufficient admission spaces will be made available for as many as possible persons who desire the polytechnic education.

We call on labour, education workers unions and students as well as working people in general to struggle for adequate funding and democratic control of all levels of public education in the state.

However, to us in DSM, only a pro-working people government run on the basis of socialist programme is capable of guaranteeing that on a lasting basis.