Our graduates are job creators – Tech-U VC

Professor Ayobami Salami is the pioneer Vice Chancellor of First Technical University, Ibadan (Tech-U). He explains the significance of technical universities. What makes technical universities different from conventional ones? Today, conventional universities are producing graduates that look for jobs and cannot stand on their own. The orientation of a conventional university is to equip people […]

Professor Ayobami Salami is the pioneer Vice Chancellor of First Technical University, Ibadan (Tech-U). He explains the significance of technical universities.

What makes technical universities different from conventional ones?

Today, conventional universities are producing graduates that look for jobs and cannot stand on their own. The orientation of a conventional university is to equip people with certificates and those students have a lot of potentials, however, nobody can eat potential without being commercialized.

Here in our Technical University, we want to produce graduates that won’t have only potentials but who will actually be able to actualize their dreams; those that will be assets to the society in terms of the value they can add, not by virtue of their certificates but by virtue of their skills. They practically contribute to their immediate community and the nation at large.

How can technical universities strengthen the science and technology sector in Nigeria?

The science and technology sector has been restrained largely to an area of theoretical advancement and development of frameworks without actually implementing them. But we are training people who can develop the framework and implement them on their own. There is a vivid difference between theory and practice. Conventional universities provide people with training to come up with ideas and principles but in Technical University, we provide trade for students with ideas, principles and concept, coupled with transforming the theory to practice; they change policies to products. That is what the university is all about and that is the link between science and technology and technical university.

 As pioneer vice chancellor, you are now a ralling point for those who intend to establish a technical university, what are the practical steps needed?

You need to articulate a unique vision. Today, we have about 160 universities in Nigeria owned by federal, state governments and private bodies. If you want to establish a technical university and you have vision similar to other universities, you need to come up with something that is totally and completely different from what is on the ground.

Secondly, you must have a focus for your project and thirdly, you need personnel who are not theoreticians. You need people who are not just diehard academics but those that can actually deliver their stuff. Also, you need a kind of collaboration that can help you actualize your vision because you want to do something people have not done before. That means you need to leverage on what is available within the shores of this country; we have never had a technical university in Nigeria before now.

You need a robust collaboration with the private sector because the aim is to be able to meet the need of the society. If you look at the best economies in the world, they are not driven by the public sector but the private sector. Any economy that is driven by the public sector is under developed. For you to have a developed economy, you need a robust private sector collaboration which we are yet to have in Nigeria. More than 80 percent of the people in Nigeria still depend on the public sector, so there cannot be development.

 Do you think our higher institutions can stand on their own and if yes, how?

Our tertiary institutions still depend on public fund and that is why most of our universities are not growing beyond ordinary universities. Here, we are an entrepreneur university that will eventually be self-sustaining. We won’t depend on government bailout all the time. We need government because education still remains a social responsibility of the government but we are not depending only on government. We have to depend on what we can generate on our own. If we don’t want our students to depend on white collar jobs, then why will the university depend on public fund? So, it is a challenge if you want to establish a technical, you need to go and prepare.

Our unique selling point is that we want to produce graduates that won’t look for jobs. If they get job fine, and if not, they will be job creators on their own. They can be hired and they can also hire, so that nobody will graduate from here and say he is looking for a job. So if you are sending your children to technical university, you can be assured that they won’t return home after four years and become burden to the society.

On hiring competent personnel, a university must be a universal community. You can be in Ibadan, Lagos or Port Harcourt but must be a universal community of students and scholars. What we are doing is that we have a lot of experts within and outside the country who we have been able to harness. As I am talking to you now, we have some of our expatriates in United States and they don’t have to stay here for a year before they can do their job. One of them just arrived today from the US. So we have to think outside the box. We invite them to handle courses at a particular period of time and when they complete their job, they go back to their countries. A personnel does not need to be in our pay roll for 12 months in a year.

 Technical universities were unpopular until this time. Why?

Well, somebody has to start a revolution. To start a revolution, you need courage, vision and passion. Maybe that has been lacking before now. But I want to thank God for the governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, who conceived the idea.

 You are into academic partnerships with some foreign universities. How does it work and what are the benefits?    

We have been collaborating with some foreign universities. We signed agreement with Texas Tech University, Lubbock, US. That university is one of the best. We don’t want to go into collaboration with just any university because we want to raise students who end up as scholars and internationally competitive. We call the agreement we signed with them 4 +1x. If you come for a five-year programme here, you will spend your first two years here and you can now spend the third year in Texas. And then you come back to spend your remaining two years here to earn your degree. If you do that, you are automatically qualified to go for your masters in Texas. After your masters, you are free to go for your PhD after which you can get a good job internationally. Now, many Nigerians wants their children to have international exposure, however many of these kids are not mature enough to handle early exposure because of the class of our culture and orientation. So, rather than sending a 16-year-old who is yet to know his left from his right to USA and thereby expose him emotionally, psychologically and culturally to danger, you can bring him here where you can have access to him.

 Many parents who are interested in technical education lack financial muscle. How affordable is your tuition fees?

Nothing good comes easily and cheap. That is the reality we need to accept. The paradox is that people want the best at no cost. That is what is responsible for the decay we have in the public universities. The government is challenging the universities to do the best but the government is not willing to give them the tools to perform, and parents are not willing also to give them the support they require. The time has gone when only the government funds education. We are advocating collaborative effort between parents, government and the private sector to ensure qualitative education.

 How can universities collaborate with industry to improve actualization of research?

Collaboration between university and industry in Nigeria is lacking. One of our aims here is to close the gap. We believe that the problem of industry will be solved by the universities and then the financial requirements of the universities will be met by the industry. When industry has challenges and university responds, industry makes money and part of the money can be invested in universities to solve their own challenges. Universities in Nigeria want industries to come and donate money to them when they are not charity organizations. So we want to establish a culture to take up challenges of industry and solve them. When we solve challenges for industry, we get compensated for it.

Let me give you one example. Our students are not going to write projects that will end up in shelves but their projects will be bases on how to solve the challenges facing industries in the country. That is going to be their final year project. We are working with industries and they are telling us their challenges and our students’ projects will be tailored towards their challenges. There is no way we will do that without making money because when we help them, they will also like to help us. We have established a relationship with industry to actualize our dreams.