In FCE Okene, we produce quality teachers – Provost

There seems to be progress in this college since you assumed office. How have you managed it?Well, first of all I have endeavored to carry members of staff and students along. I tried as much as possible to see that we are all united and that we operate an open door policy by being transparent […]

There seems to be progress in this college since you assumed office. How have you managed it?
Well, first of all I have endeavored to carry members of staff and students along. I tried as much as possible to see that we are all united and that we operate an open door policy by being transparent in everything we do concerning financial and academic matters. Also, we make sure that every member of staff in this college belongs to one committee or the other so that together we can make decisions. Even students are members of sub-committees that are relevant to them.
Apart from that, we dialogue with stakeholders in the school from time to time; we hold meetings with the various unions in the school so as to arrive at a common position. We also lay emphasis on staff welfare and engaged in tremendous infrastructural development in the school.
From my own experience, if you are able to motivate staff very well, they will work for you to succeed. I could also say that I am blessed with a good host community whose members are ready to work with us. The governing council is also in good working relation with us.

Your institution recently commenced degree programmes, what challenges are you facing?
There were some problems but we know that any institution that wants to start degree programmes would face such problems: like the problem of staff and facilities. But our major problem, which is that of affiliation, was solved by the University of Ibadan when it gave us the approval for degree programmes. The only challenge that is before us is funding because the institution is a teacher training one and the money we are getting from the government is meant for the NCE programmes. Therefore we need more funds to run the degree programmes in other disciplines.

What is your college doing differently to produce quality teachers?
There is a saying that no education can rise about the quality of its teachers, which means that teachers occupy central position in education. If you neglect teachers, you neglect quality of education and that is why we are always laying emphasis on training and retraining of our teachers so that we can be able to produce quality teachers. We are sponsoring them to workshops and conferences, not only in Nigeria but internationally. We also sponsored scores of teachers for Masters and PhD programmes. We organized in-house workshops where lecturers are exposed to modern techniques of teaching and learning as well. We are equally organizing research on teaching methods which is compulsory for all lecturers in this college. So with this our lecturers are up to date in modern teaching methods and that is why in FCE Okene, we produce quality teachers.

How do you think the problem of funding can be addressed?
No educational institution can claim to be sufficient as far as funding is concerned because government alone cannot fund education. Government also spends money on health, agriculture, road and other areas of human endeavor, therefore institutions have to seek for alternative sources of funds to augment whatever comes from government. FCE Okene is not an exception as far as this issue is concerned and that is why we will not relent in our effort to see how we can generate money to augment the subvention from government. For instance, we have established a block making industry; built a 12 block guest house; we have also built a pure water factory; and introduced ICT consultancy service.
We are planning to build 40 lock up shops in the college, a poultry and fishery. So these are some of the projects we have embarked upon to augment government subvention. We have also established a College of Advancement to mobilize more funds from NGOs, international organizations and banking sector.

You always make do with the products from JAMB, NECO and WAESC but with the falling standard of education where do we put the blame?
There is no agreement on whether education standard in Nigeria is falling or not because there are those who would look at the performance in public examinations like WAESC and NECO, and because the performance has not been good over the years, they will say the standard of education is falling. There are those who would say it is falling because the spoken English of our students including graduates is bad. The point I am trying to make is that there is no general consensus on whether the standard of education is falling in Nigeria or not but if the standard is falling then we should all be responsible. I mean all of us; the stakeholders are to blame.
Generally, people are blaming the government because it has not provided adequate funds but to me, some stakeholders should also be blamed.

What about the teachers, many of them are not qualified?
There are those who are there because it was their last resort and when they get greener pasture they will leave. There are those who use the time they are supposed to be teaching for their business. What I am saying is that it is not enough to blame the government alone as other stakeholders have their blame too. The parents too have theirs, how many parents pay attention to their children’s education, it is not enough to only pay school fees; it goes beyond that. How many of them care about what their children are doing in the classrooms; go through their books; write assignments; or do home work for them to test their capabilities.
The truth is that most parents are only interested in chasing money and because of that they have no time in the upbringing of their children. Now, the students too also have their blame, they are part of the society and the society now is all about money so most of our children are only interested in money making but don’t want to read. Instead of that they prefer watching foreign TV stations that will corrupt them and the parents will not even care to stop them. Such students are neither interested in reading nor making use of the library; they are only interested in cheating just to acquire the certificates. This notion led to the birth of miracle centers where even parents help their children to cheat during public examinations.  So the government, teachers, parents and students are to blame. If we must find solution to the problem of education all stakeholders must play their part properly.

Our education system is bedeviled with strikes. How can we end this phenomenon?
Strike in our institutions can be addressed through dialogue; because dialogue can solve many problems. It is only when you table your problem and the aggrieved also tabled theirs that you can understand each other better and arrive at a compromise. So, basically the solution is dialogue.

The UNESCO recommendation of 26 percent for education has never been met in this country, how do you think this could be attained?
Well, like I said earlier, most institutions must find other sources of revenue to augment government subvention and our only source of revenue is school fees and government subvention. But if you go to private institutions there is no restriction on school fees and that is why they have first class facilities. Also, government believes that every Kobo generated by public institutions should be lodged into the government coffers. I am of the opinion that government should allow its institutions to spend the revenue they generate provided they can do so properly.