Out of bounds •As FG shut door against specialised varsities on courses outside mandate

Recently the Federal Government stepped in to stop specialised universities from further admitting students for courses totally outside their original ‘mandate’. CLEMENT IDOKO, in this report, writes on the how and why of the missteps of the universities concerned.

ON 8 January, 2017, the Federal Government came down heavily on some specialised universities in the country and directed them to stop running programmes that are outside their mandates. This followed observation by the government that some of the universities had deviated from their core courses.

Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, who gave the directive on behalf of the Federal Government, directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to delete all such courses on its portal. He equally advised all candidates applying for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME) conducted by JAMB not to be hoodwinked into such programmes as they are illegal and would not be provided in the board’s brochure.

Specialised universities are set up to pursue specific courses/ programmes, to steer the needs of manpower in a particular sector of the economy. Some of these specialised institutions include Universities of Agriculture, Universities of Technology, Universities of Education, amongst others.

Over time it has been revealed that some courses have been introduced to suit the needs of some universities and their administrators. Some universities of Agriculture were found to be offering courses like Banking, Engineering, Business Administration, Accounting, Banking and Finance, Law and so on. These are major courses that should not have been listed in the portals of these institutions in the first place. With this development, it was expected that they should have stopped offering the courses, but they never did.

In the same vein, some Universities of Technology offer Banking Engineering and Accounting technology.

Public Relations Officer of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin who confirmed this development said the Federal government has observed the anomaly and has thus stepped in.

“Government notes the unfortunate situation where Universities of Agriculture offer programmes in Law, Management courses such as Accounting, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, among others. As if that was not enough some institutions change the nomenclature of some of the courses to, for instance, Banking Engineering, Accounting Technology, among other names. This is an aberration and should be stopped with immediate effect,” he said.

Investigation by Sunday Tribune revealed that the University of Agriculture, Makurdi (UAM), established on 1st of January 1988 as a specialised university having evolved from the defunct Federal University of Technology which was established in 1980, deviated in 2010 when the Senate of the university approved the establishment of the College of Management Sciences.

Findings indicated that the College of Management Sciences of the university was created in 2011 with two departments namely: Department of Business Administration and Department of Accounting and Finance.

It was also observed that Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, runs courses like Arabic/Christian Religious Studies, Business Administration, Home Economics, Marketing, and Accountancy.

Some of the specialised universities stopped by the Federal Government from offering these ‘out of mandate’ courses include Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB); Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi (FUAM); and  Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU), Abia State.

Others are Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA); Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO); Madibbo Adama University of Technology Yola (MAUTECH); Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomoso (LAUTECH); Abubakar Tafawa University of Technology Bauchi (ATBU);  and Bells University of Technology Ota (BUT).

The affected state-owned universities include, Rivers State University of Science and Technology Port Harcourt (RSUST); Enugu State University of Science and Technology Enugu (ESUT); Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil (KUST) and Cross River State University of Technology, Calabar (CRUTECH).

Former Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo, University Ile-Ife, and Secretary General of Committee and Vice Chancellors (CVC), Professor Michael Faborode, in an interview with Sunday Tribune in Abuja, commended the Federal government for taking bold steps to the specialise universities from running unauthorised courses.

Faborode said the decision was in line with the outcome of a recent summit on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) organised by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian universities (CVC), Trust Africa, Dakar and the National Universities Commission (NUC) in Abuja.

“The fact of the matter is that when you do not keep to your mission, you distort the national plan and you distort the equilibrium of the Nigerian university system. So, our appeal to our colleagues is that: keep within your mandate. Government has a purpose to say, this is a university of agriculture, this is a university of technology and this is conventional university.

“So, when you begin to wobble because of local pressure, for instance, a community is saying we want to produce lawyers… I think a university should stand on its core areas of mandate. The essence of our conference was to lay down solid foundation, if somebody is going to move, then they should be a procedure and proper guide.

“The legal provisions that need to be strengthened and keep people within their mandates and remain focused are coming out. So, we are in support of the decision. In the implementation, government is trying to look at the period of weaning off. They will stop admission now, those on the programme will finish their programmes and then there will be a smooth transition,” he said.

Speaking on some reasons given by some of the specialised universities for deviating from their mandates, such as funding and expansion of access to university education, Faborode said the problems still remain except more universities are established.

“The problem of access will still remain with us. It is a problem; that is why at the end of the admission exercise candidates that have required scores are unable to gain admission. That is why we have agreed that we still need more universities, only that any university that is going to be established must not lower standard. So, it is an ongoing battle and we are still working at it but that should not be a license to just admit any how and not keeping within the limit.”

The vice chancellors further noted that there has been poor synergy between requirements of business, industry and employers of labour and the curricular of tertiary institutions and conflict between the enabling laws of regulatory agencies and institutional autonomy as enshrined in the Statutes/Acts of HEIs.