Edo University ‘established for rich students who can afford the fees’

The management of the state-owned Edo University, Iyamho, (EUI) says the institution was established to primarily cater for academically-endowed students and the wealthy in the society.

The tuition fees of the institution range from between N400, 000 and N450, 000 per session.

Emmanuel Aluyor, the vice chancellor of the institution, disclosed this in an interview with NAN on Monday, in Iyamho-Uzairue, Estako-West local government area of Edo.

He said: “The idea behind the establishment of Edo University by the founding fathers is neither to replace nor compete with the existing Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.

“But rather, to complement it in terms of providing world-class education with the best of infrastructure to academically-gifted students and the rich, who can afford the fees.

“People have questioned why former Gov. Adams Oshiomhole did not upgrade AAU, than establishing a new university altogether.

“Apart from its being capital-intensive to either renovate or bring in the needed infrastructure, the idea was to provide a different brand of education to the people.

“We are offering world-class infrastructure and state-of-the art facilities at EUI; that is why our fees are high. And that depends from which perspective you are looking at it.

“If it is from the perspective of a private university, our fees are very low indeed, because there is no private university that charges anything lower than what we offer.

“And only one or two public universities charge the same fees as us and that also depends on the quality of infrastructure and programmes on offer.

“The idea of the founding fathers is for anyone to have an ambiance of everything he desires abroad in any university environment here.”

According to him, the university authority has also assembled first class academic and non-academic staff to complement the infrastructure and facilities, to ensure that the students are well groomed in character and in learning.

The university was on March 23, 2016, approved by the NUC as Nigeria’s 41st state university. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes.