The pioneer Vice-Chancellor of the Edo University, Iyamho, Prof. Emmanuel Aluyor, speaks on the management of the institution in this interview with ALEXANDER OKERE
Since its commencement in 2016, has the university lived up to its vision of delivering quality teaching, research and innovation?
We are a new university. But since we got recognition from the National Universities Commission to commence academic activities, we have made giant strides. We have got approval to run various programmes in the faculties in Engineering, Science, Arts, Management and Social Sciences. We have a College of Medicine, where we have a School of Medicine and Basic Medical Sciences. We have also got approval from the NUC to run the Faculty of Law. The Council of Legal Education visited and in a few days, we expect that the approval will be in the kitty.
We commenced academic activities in the university on April 11, 2016. We have about seven professors on ground; we have gone out of our way to recruit professors that we believe are very knowledgeable in their fields of specialisation and ready to mentor the young ones.
In the face of recession, what is the university doing differently to produce graduates who can stand the test of time?
We have drawn a curriculum for entrepreneurship in Edo University, which encompasses entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity, with a total of eight credits that every student in the university must pass across the second, third and fourth year of his or her academic programme. That is to ensure that every student that passes through the institution, even if he or she does not get a white collar job, will probably be an employer of labour.
With the rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria, do you agree that entrepreneurial skills can bridge the gap?
I don’t think it is entrepreneurship that will bridge the gap. No. What will bridge the gap is quality education, which is what we are providing in Edo University. When we talk about quality education, there are several aspects of it. It is one thing to know what you should know and it is another thing to apply the knowledge that you have gained. Yes, you may call some aspects of it entrepreneurship. That is why I tried to give a more elaborate definition of what I think entrepreneurship should encompass, when I talked about innovation and creativity. An engineer does not have to go to the farm to contribute his quota to bringing Nigeria out of recession. A political or computer scientist does not need to do so, too. So, agriculture is just one aspect of what is needed to diversify Nigeria’s economy.
In view of the growing cost of education in Nigeria, do you think that private universities deserve government intervention, through TETFUND?
That is a controversial matter that, being an interested party, I would rather not want to delve into. The model of our university is that even though it is state government-owned, the kind of fees that we charge here is more than what some private universities charge. For example, our Microbiology and Biochemistry students have a total fee (excluding accommodation) of N300,000 per session. I know some private universities where it is about N250,000. For our medical programme, the fee is about N1.5m or N1.4m to three million naira. I know some private universities that charge about that amount.
For our engineering programme, the school fee is N500,000 per annum. Again, I know some private universities that charge less than that. So, I would not be an advocate for or against private universities getting access to TETFUND. We have not yet got access to it but we are working on it and we hope that we will get some money from TETFUND to assist in moving the university forward.
What is your reaction to complaints by parents over exorbitant tuition fees charged by your university?
If you have gone round the university, you would agree that the infrastructure in place here is somewhat a little higher than what you would find in most public universities. The concept is to use the parlance in pidgin English, soup wey sweet, na money kill am. To maintain the facilities you see here, because they must be maintained, requires some level of funding, which the government, having put it in place, may not be able to sustain.
Some persons have raised issues about the true ownership of the university. Is it private or public or both?
As of today, Edo University, Iyamho, is fully and 100 per cent owned by the Edo State Government. It is a public university. The recession in our economy has taught us to learn to do things in a different manner. Without mentioning any name, I am sure there are many public universities whose infrastructure rivalled what we have here, when they started. Go back there, with many years down the line, their equipment has all broken down. Copyright PUNCH.
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