Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the Federal Government’s continued escalation of the cost of public education, describing the recent increase in fees for Federal Unity Colleges and the reported approval of a uniform ₦50,000 Naira examination fee for West African Examinations Council WAEC and National Examinations Council NECO candidates from 2027 as cruel.
The Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, said it is unconscionable that at a time when Nigerian families are battling record inflation, soaring food prices, rising transportation costs, crippling electricity tariffs, stagnant incomes and widespread unemployment, the President Bola Tinubu’s administration has chosen to make education even more expensive.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku noted that education remains the greatest instrument of social mobility and the surest pathway out of poverty for millions of children from humble backgrounds, adding that every additional financial burden imposed on parents translates into another child being denied the opportunity to learn, dream and contribute meaningfully to society.
He warned that increasing fees in Federal Unity Colleges while imposing significantly higher costs on WAEC and NECO examinations would affect children from poor and middle-income families, whose parents are already making impossible choices between food, healthcare, transportation, and education.
Atiku therefore called on President Tinubu to immediately reverse the increase in Unity School fees and the proposed ₦50,000 WAEC and NECO examination fee, and convene an urgent stakeholders’ dialogue on sustainable financing for public education
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