*Says Delta Wastes N457m To Lecture ‘Empty Halls’ At Three Colleges Of Education
By Monday Osayande
Delta State government waste the sum of N457 million to lecture empty halls at three Colleges of Education, the state commissioner for higher education, Prof. Patrick Muoboghare has said.
Addressing Journalists in Asaba, on Wednesday, Muoboghare while explaining the reasons for the upgrade of three higher institutions to a University status said “the total monthly expenditures of Delta State on these three Colleges of Education, Warri, Agbor and Mosogar that has 2, 888 students are N457 million per month for a total staff strength of about 1, 893, giving the state government a staff student ratio of 1:1.5 students to a staff. To us that is wasteful expenditure”.
The Commissioner who lamented the financial waste pointed out that the state government was thinking of “alternative to shut them down but certainly we will not shut them down. If we upgrade one to a University status and then the other two will run their programmes then those NCE students will know that they have somewhere to aspire to for their degree programme. That informed why we decided to upgrade one of the Colleges of Education to a University of Education”.
He further explained while buttressing his points on why government took such decisions that “a neighbouring state has a student strength of 14, 000 in the University with salary wage of N250 million while Delta has a student strength of 2, 888 at the NCE level with salary wage of N457 million”.
According to him, the initial students enrollment of the three institutions stood at 5000, “but as we speak the number of students enrollment for the NCE1 to NCE3 programms put together is 2,888 students”.
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Prof. Muoboghare, also disclosed that the state government deemed it necessary to follow the federal government deliberate policy of phasing out Higher National Diploma (HND) programme, hence the bill to upgrade the schools was sent to the State House of Assembly.
The Higher Education Commissioner asserted that the three Polytechnics and the School of Marine Technology in Burutu local government area would be left with the production of just National Diploma (ND) graduates.
He further disclosed that the state government’s decision to upgrade the schools to a University status was hing on the fact that it could not spend millions of naira producing just ND graduates.
In his words: “we asked ourselves the question, can we afford to spend so much on these four Institutions just for the ND programme? And when a student has gotten the ND, where is he progressing to? Before now, the student will progress to the HND programme”.
Muoboghare, noted that the decision was to provide a platform for the student to continue his education, “And that is why we decided that one of the Polytechnics should be upgraded to the status of the University of Science and Technology”.
“As at today the focus of the Dr. Okowa’s government is to have Technical Colleges in all the local governments of Delta State after tantalizing these children with technical skills. They would not want to stop there knowing Deltans for who they are, they want to progress.
“So, naturally, there is a Polytechnic for them to go for their ND alone now because you cannot go beyond the ND and you know that these children were going for the ND initially because they have HND to progress to and since there is no HND, let us have a University of Science and Technology for them, this is why we took that decision”, Prof. Muoboghare posited.
