FEBRUARY 16, 2012 BY OLUSEGUN ADEBAYO 52 COMMENTS
Establishing a university is not as simple as an Englishman finding a coffee on his table and sipping it with pleasure. It is a capital intensive project. The immediate past administration in Ogun State appeared to have got it completely wrong by establishing a so-called first University of Education in Nigeria which, ironically, is funded like a primary school project. I think Nigerian politicians should find another way of making names for themselves and not toy with the education of our children.
Quite unknown to many, Tai Solarin College of Education, Ijagun was also a degree awarding institution (in education courses) just like the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo before it was changed to Tai Solarin University of Education in 2005 by the Gbenga Daniel administration. While the latter was doing so in conjunction with the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, the former was affiliated to the University of Ibadan.
TASCE was of course running its National Certificate of Education programme like Adeyemi College of Education until the 2005 change when it was moved from its Ijagun campus to Omu and TASUED supplanted it at Ijagun.
Upon the change of the name from TASCE to TASUED in 2005, the degree students then in Year Two continued their programme and left as graduates of 'Tai Solarin College of Education in affiliation with the University of Ibadan' while the new school, TASUED, began to admit fresh students in its name.
What this implies is that the present students of TASUED will graduate as TASUED products even though the name of the school is now Institute of Education, Olabisi Onabanjo University.
Therefore, there is no cause for any alarm on the part of the students.
As a stakeholder in Ogun State, I have followed the activities of the current administration in the education sector. The following facts, to me, seem, incontrovertible about the administration. Governor Ibikunle Amosun on assumption of office (a) cancelled all form of school fees in all public primary and secondary schools in the state; (b) distributed free textbooks and all learning materials to pupils of these schools; (c) reduced tuition fees payable in all state owned higher institutions of learning; (d) devoted 22 per cent of the 2012 budget to education; (e) began payment of subventions and running costs to all state owned educational institutions, (f) began regular payment of teachers or workers salaries and allowances despite inheriting a heavily indebted state, and paid the Universal Basic Education counterpart fund for 2008 and 2009.
Is it then possible for the same administration, to now embark on a policy that will jeopardise the ambition of the same students?
Even as Tai Solarin College of Education under the former administration, the institution was poorly funded. Why then did it change the institution to a full-fledged university when it did not have the financial wherewithal to make it one? Some of us warned against proliferation of institutions then but our voices were drowned by those sycophants and hypocrites.
I think what the current administration has done is simple and straightforward. Let TASCE return to its original campus and go on awarding its NCE programme, the primary reason it was set up while the so-called university, TASUED, should become Institute of Education under Olabisi Onabanjo University and have its campus at Omu. In effect, the Institute of Education is just like one of the campuses of the OOU.
There was no need for the proliferation of institutions in Ogun State. Attempting to be seen as the first to have a University of Education in Nigeria is cheap and needless propaganda when the products of the malnourished institution will not do more than be able to write their names after graduation!
At any rate, does Ogun State need another public state university apart from OOU? Rather than struggle to revive the institution that was once a citadel of learning, it was left on a life support by the past administration which then went on a wild goose chase by attempting to make a name for itself through TASUED project.
Again, it did the unthinkable by establishing four polytechnics simultaneously! And when you consider the fact that Ogun State has the highest number of higher institutions in Nigeria, you wonder the need to establish mushroom institutions.
From available information, Lagos State, with a staggering monthly Internally Generated Revenue of about N15bn per month, has five state-owned institutions; Oyo State has four; Osun five; Ondo and Ekiti have seven while Edo State has two. Yet, Ogun has 10 state-owned institutions, in addition to the eight private higher institutions, four federal higher institutions, thus making a total of 22 in the state! What wisdom then informed the establishment of the so-called University of Education? To add to the number of struggling institutions whose workers could not be paid salaries and allowances as at when due?
Were there no reports in the media that workers were owed in some of these institutions salaries of between seven and 12 months by the last administration? Even TASUED was reportedly borrowing money, up to N500m, to pay salaries when the last administration was not paying its salaries, yet the institution was still owing workers months of outstanding salaries. Is that not a disservice to the future of our children? To expect hungry and famished staff to nurture a future for Ogun must have been wishful thinking on the part of the former governor.
Resources saved from administrative costs in running TASUED and those ICT polytechnics, in addition to the enhanced budgets for the institutions, should now be deployed to raise the standard of OOU and the other institutions in the state.
.Adebayo, a retired civil servant, wrote in from Iperu, Ogun State.
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