Anthony Anwukah, Minister of State for Education, says it is wrong for federal universities to charge tuition fees, but they can fix other fees.
“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,” Anwukah said on Wednesday while briefing journalists at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.
He 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.
In the same vein, the FEC gave provisional licence for the establishment of a private institution, Skyline University, in Kano State.
Currently Nigeria has 163 universities: 47 are state owned, 42 are owned by the federal government and 73 are privately owned.