The vice chancellor, Ekiti State University, Professor Samuel Oye Bandele, in this interview with LAOLU HAROLDS, spoke on some of the progress made by EKSU in recent times, as well as his take on some topical issues in the sector.
What is the current accreditation status of EKSU’s existing programmes?
Virtually all our programmes have been accredited by the National Universities Commission. The only two programmes where we have some problems are Philosophy and Civil Engineering. I am happy to say that this last outing, we now had interim (accreditation). ‘Interim’ is also accreditation, but not full. Except those two with interim accreditation, all our programmes are fully accredited by the NUC.
Are there new programmes in view?
One good thing that has happened through this management is the efforts we made and the eventual approval of 11 new programmes for our university. We requested for 12 programmes, 11 were approved, and as I start to mention them now you will see that they are the in-thing now. We want to go now into contemporary areas that will impact significantly on the modern ICT society.
We have the Actuarial Science. To the best of my knowledge, it used to be only the University of Lagos and about two other universities in the whole nation that were running that programme. BSc Insurance has been approved for us. Others are BSc Marketing, BSc Cooperative and Rural Development, BSc Tourism Studies, BEd Educational Technology, BSc Entrepreneurship (very few universities also run this one, particularly public institutions), BSc Industrial Relations and Personnel Management, Anatomy, then BSc Physiology. We are still pursuing the approval of BSc Nursing.
So, in terms of new programmes, I think the motivation for it is that there is now a sharp deviation from traditional courses to contemporary courses that will impact more on the 21st century university.
In the area of strengthening IGR infrastructure, what new developments have taken place at EKSU lately?
The last time you were here, everything was at the incubation stage, but now I’m happy to tell you that we are at the functional stage. Our water project has started and is the talk of the town. It’s one of the best (brands of table) water, if not the best, in this state now. Not that alone, our university press has been radically restructured. Before I came on board, most of the things we used here were printed outside. Our convocation brochure and journals are now printed at our press. Before I came on board, there was no bookshop in this university. Now we have a bookshop. Our block industry is also there, and in the fullness of time now, when we start to have some buildings, it is our block industry that will supply all the blocks needed. In agriculture also, we have made a lot of impact. When I came on board and I saw that the Faculty of Agriculture was a faculty that could impact on the university and the society, I carved out what I called Agric Venture. And it’s doing very well. The poultry is revived; we have planted acres of cassava. We have cows now; if you want to buy cows, we have now (either whole cows or cow meat). A lot of things are happening already.
Let’s talk about challenges. Are there inhibitions or factors slowing you down in your way to fulfill your mandate as vice chancellor?
I want to say very clearly that one of the major impediments is bureaucratic network. I believe in due process, but I believe more in speed and accuracy. I’ve been trying to change this orientation since I came on board. I tell them, ‘let’s do this work as if it’s our own’. When I came, I was closing by 7 or 8 pm. You need to work. In the developed countries, if you don’t work for one hour, you don’t take the wages for that one hour; but in our side of the country, people can waste a whole day and they will still be paid. Another thing is this general economic situation. And it’s not peculiar to our state. When salaries are not paid, staff become despondent. As I am talking to you now, there are a lot of agitations, a lot of pressures. And I think people are qualified to ask for their wages, but what would government do also if the money is not there?
Talking about funding, must universities actually depend on government for their survival?
I’ll answer the question in two ways. ‘Must university depend on government?’ I would say yes; because a child will always depend on his father. Each university has its own peculiarity. So, since they have proprietors, the proprietors should take care of their universities. But it would also be unrealistic in the present society to expect government alone to shoulder the responsibilities of the university 100 per cent. That would be impossible. In fact, that would kill the entrepreneurial spirit.
Should government actually be establishing universities? The Ivy League institutions like Yale, Harvard, Oxford and so on do not belong to government.
But even in the countries you are mentioning, they still have public institutions. I want us to note that the society is a conglomerate of so many types of people – rich, average, low income people. There is no way these private institutions will not be very costly in terms of school fees. So, very significantly, whether in this country or outside, those who go to private institutions are those who have the money. Government cannot look away also from the majority who may be poor and may not have the privilege of going to private institutions. Therefore, government will continue to establish universities.
Would you recommend, then, that public universities be allowed to charge fees?
Very sincerely, I would.
Have you made such recommendation to governments on the platform of the Committee of Vice Chancellors, for instance?
I would recommend to government that (public) universities be allowed to charge fees. It may not be as exorbitant as what private institutions charge, where there is no government support; but to say that parents should not have hands in the education of their children at the tertiary level is the greatest deception anybody can fall into in any nation. In my former university, the University of Science and Technology, Ifaki, as far back as 2001, we were charging N200,000 – and there was value for money! Parents supported it. When the university was to be stopped by one of the previous governors, parents resisted. They said they were ready to pay the money. What I’m saying is that if we don’t put money into education, we won’t have the best type of education. So, I am one of those who believe that public universities should charge fees.
The other side of the question is making the recommendation on the platform of the CVC. Well, at the Committee of Vice Chancellors, we are not on the same page in that regard. We have the federal, state and private institutions; except at our different individual associations (because we also have association of state universities’ vice chancellors).
Private universities are increasing, but are you pleased with the quality coming out from these institutions?
I must confess to you that I’m not too pleased. I’m not too pleased with the proliferation of private universities in an unchecked manner. I believe that government should check the proliferation of business-like universities in the nation. Education should not be commercialised, but that is what appears to be happening in some of these private institutions. Thank God for some few wonderful private institutions that have come up. My take could have been that government, instead of just opening the door wide for private institutions to continue to grow, let the public ones be adequately equipped. Let them be made models; let them be attractive also to students. Government should really focus on these public institutions, build them up to an acceptable standard and limit the upsurge of private universities.
The propriety or otherwise of the post-UTME is still being discussed even on the floor of the National Assembly. Two questions here: do we really need the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board? And if we do, why do we need the post-UTME?
You’re asking the right person; I am a professor in Tests and Measurement. So, I would say we need JAMB at this time in our nation. If it was when we had few universities, each university would have been able to manage the admission of its candidates without any problem; but now, if there is no central coordinating body, there will be confusion all over the nation. We need a central body that will control what is happening in our institutions. If the JAMB is not there, the confusion will be monumental in terms of admission of students.
As to the post-UTME, I still want to say that it’s optionally needed. The requirement for entering university is the school certificate result, not UTME or post-UTME. If you have your O’Level result, you are eminently qualified to enter any university without any examination at all. The UTME and post-UTME are just screening tests because the number that want to enter are so many. But I said it’s ‘optionally needed’ because, for example, if you have a university that needs to admit 4000 students, and all the qualified candidates that apply to it are just 3000, what does it need screening test for? It would just admit all of them and still have space for more.
Universities are supposed to solve society’s problems. Are you satisfied with the impact of Nigerian universities on the society?
I’m not too pleased, but that is not to say that the universities are not having impact. The impact may not be as significant as we expect. And that takes us back to what we have been saying that government should equip universities so that we can also prepare our graduates to impact on the society. When you have a faculty of engineering where you don’t have enough up-to-date equipment, you cannot expect much from such.
Taking the new courses that have just been approved for EKSU as given, what else are you looking forward to achieving in the near future?
By the grace of God, in the next few months, I want to have a Faculty of Environmental Science where we are going to have Architecture, Quantity Surveying, Urban and Rural Planning. I also desire that we have a Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. We want to also enhance our agricultural area and go into mechanised farming that can feed beyond our environment here.