LASU says no fee hike, introduces two-stream undergraduate programme

The Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, has debunked the claim in some quarters that the institution had increased its tuition for various undergraduate programmes with effect from the 2019\2020 academic session.

The vice chancellor of the university, Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun, refuted the claim at a news conference held last week, saying “the assertion holds no water.”

According to him, LASU only introduced two-stream undergraduate programmes to help deepen students’ entrepreneurship knowledge and skills development with a view to producing better graduates that will not only be self-employed but employers of labour.

He explained that research had shown that small medium enterprises absorb more than 80 per cent of the workforce in Nigeria, hence the need for LASU to contribute more meaningfully to the production of entrepreneurs who would effectively help in taking the country out of the comity of poor countries.

And one of the ways to do this, he said, is by running entrepreneurial programmes as a stream-two, covering about 79 areas alongside other various regular undergraduate courses.

These programmes, he noted, are optional for students.

While maintaining that the fees for regular bachelor degree programmes across disciplines in the university remain N25, 000 on the average, while that of the newly introduced stream-two is N150,000, Fagbohun, a professor of Law, emphasised that students can choose to register or not for the stream-two programmes.

The stream-two programmes, according to him, are like running professional courses, without lowering in anyway the quality of knowledge and skills to gain under the stream-one programmes.

“Part of the advantages of the stream-two is that students under the programme will be taught entrepreneurship courses, both during the first year of the regular stream-one programme and also throughout the duration of the stream-two programme, and upon completion of programmes graduate with two certificates – one as a major and the other as minor,” he explained.

Fagbohun however, noted that “LASU operates through quality assurance directorate that monitors independently every programme of the university in order to achieve world-best practices.”

In his contribution, director, Centre for Entrepreneur of the university, Professor Martins Anetekhan, noted that the university would engage successful entrepreneurs in various fields from outside LASU to teach and mentor students under the stream-two programme and with their services not clashing with that of the regular faculty members.