From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Dr. Allwell Onukogu, rector, Uma Ukpai Polytechnic, Asaga Ohafia, Abia State, former rector, Abia State Polytechnic, Uturu, in this interview, said management of state polytechnics should be given a free rein to operate in line with their enabling laws.
How has it been since leaving Abia Poly?
It has been very exciting. I was on sabbatical at the Gregory University, Uturu, as Director of General Studies and Head of Department. I was there when Dr Uma Ukpai engaged me as Rector, Uma Ukpai Polytechnic, Asaga Ohafia.
Your disengagement in Abia Poly was quite abrupt. Were there things that happened then that you now regret?
There is nothing that I did in Abia Poly that I regret. The only thing is that I had only four months to the end of my tenure. The transition was not quite smooth and I was trying to establish the School of Communication and Film Studies in Osisioma campus.
I had obtained a certificate of occupancy for the site, did a proposal I was taking to TETfund. It is not as if I am weeping. No! One cannot do everything he or she wants to do. I hope that those that came after me would continue from where I stopped.
Uma Ukpai Poly is privately owned. Can you compare its management and academic structures with the government ones?
Yes, the institution is privately owned. Presently, we have electrical, computer engineering, computer science; accountancy and statistics courses.
I have written to the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), to come and see the equipment and resources at our disposal so that we can establish the science laboratory technology, architecture, business administration and public administration courses.
In a polytechnic, there has to be a balance in the humanities and core science and technological programmes. We need more courses and have the capacity to handle them successfully. The only problem is that when you mention private, our people get jilted about costs, though they know it will always be very valuable.
I don’t believe that nothing is impossible if one sincerely embarks on it with a clear mind and right focus. I believe in leaving a mark wherever I go. I came to Abiapoly from The Polytechnic, Calabar (now Cross River State University of Science and Technology), on a sabbatical.
As I was engaged fully into the institution, the then Orji Kalu administration, braced all odds and opposition, to appoint me rector when the position became vacant. I came in as a management professional and the rules at the time said only those with engineering, science and technology bias should be appointed to head polytechnics.
As the then governor, who was the visitor to the institution, approved my elevation as rector, with a charge to make Abiapoly a real polytechnic of world standard, I had no option than to live the dream of his administration. I worked with the management team I had, to reorganize and nurture the institution to the position it was before my exit.
There was scarcity of funds and government subvention was very little compared with our budgets. We however, took cognizance of the fact that Abians expected so much from us that was why we worked tirelessly to attain the successes you mentioned.
We changed the structural complex of the institution, attracted attention from neighbouring states and beyond, including the international community and its agencies. This made us to become well placed. State authorities should allow polytechnic managements to operate their establishment enabling laws to succeed.
Looking at the current educational growth and development, are we getting it right?
The story of the kind of secondary schools we have in Abia and other neighbouring states these days, are very pathetic. There is this concept of the gown and the town. If you go to developed countries like the United States of America, universities determine the growth or failure of the economy.
Sometimes, the universities have budgets that are independent of the government and they fund such budgets to develop the academic and intellectual wellbeing that drives the economy to stardom. We have not reached that stage yet in our country.
The fact is that we are building two or more storey structures without foundation. That is what we are doing in our educational development programmes. The buildings cannot stand the test of time and will never give you rest. We blame the universities so much, but I think our problems come from the primary and secondary school levels.
In Abia State, most public primary schools have three to four teachers to handle tens of pupils. Most of the pupils have gone to private schools that charge so much money. Only a handful of them have what it takes to maintain required standards.
Parents boast about how much they spend training their children, but fail to find out who their teachers are and their pedigree. Some of the teachers have no training and need to be taught to be able to impart knowledge into other people.
So, at the time the products of secondary schools go into the university, they do not have the capacity to benefit from university education. They enter the university in a state of intellectual vacuum with no foundation on which university lecturing would stand on.
In the past, we did higher school programmes after the secondary school certificate – Rapid Results College, Wolesley Hall College and London GCE, to qualify for university matriculation. As one goes in there, he will be biologically mature and intellectually fit to accept lectures.
There is a difference between a teacher and a lecturer in the university. The teacher operates at the lower level while the lecturer helps the students develop self-confidence and the ability to look for information on their own.
Now, when our youths enter the university, the lecturer had to start teaching what he ought to have studied at the primary and secondary school levels – JSS. A lecturer is not supposed to teach, he lectures. He comes into the lecture room and postulates, gives a reading list – bibliographies and watch what the students would do with them.
Let me give an example. I once had a driver that needed a school certificate to be promoted. He entered for an examination, but I could not remember a day he excused himself to attend extra-mural studies, so that he could pass the exams.
When later the results came, he had ‘A’ in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry among others. I began to ask when he had the learning. It is from the special centres, which still exist today, that they get the results with the connivance of school proprietors and those that would have supervised and inspected them from the Ministry of Education.
What can be the remedy in view of incessant face-off between the government and lecturers leading to unending industrial actions by the latter?
What ASUU, their polytechnics and college of education counterparts are demanding are legitimate and right. They want improved infrastructure in our institutions, not their personal homes. He who works must be appropriately remunerated.
Let government agents stop dilly dallying and lying to Nigerians. It is wickedness to do so to our youths, while shifting blame to those that are innocent and are working for the good of the system.