Sa’adatu Rimi College capable of running degree programmes — Provost

Your institution is affiliating with Bayero University, Kano and University of Ilorin on some degree programmes. What informed your decision to seek this partnership?Our college is a National Certificate of Education (NCE) awarding institution and because we have a lot to offer to our teeming population in Kano State, we decided to move forward and […]

Your institution is affiliating with Bayero University, Kano and University of Ilorin on some degree programmes. What informed your decision to seek this partnership?
Our college is a National Certificate of Education (NCE) awarding institution and because we have a lot to offer to our teeming population in Kano State, we decided to move forward and mount a degree programme. Our law permits us to at least mount a degree programme. But we cannot do that now because we have to learn from the beginning. So the intention is to look at the need of Kano State and the policies of the Kano State government and see what we need to add on top of what we already have to attain a degree programme.  
So we have consulted the Ministry of Education, the Senior Secondary School Management Board and the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC) to see what manpower they require to take care of our children from primary to secondary school. We came up with the idea we need to produce teachers at graduate levels in Arabic, Islamic Studies, Chemistry, Biology, English and Mathematics.
We went to BUK and informed them of our intention to mount degree programmes in their name. They came, assessed our facilities and agreed. They developed a memorandum of understanding which we signed so as to start this degree programme. Fortunately for us they accepted to at least allow us to mount nine programmes with their name. They added History, Mathematics and Kinetic Education or Physical Health Education.  
And for the other courses that we intend to offer but which BUK doesn’t offer, we have to seek for another university that would allow us to mount the programme in their own name because the public should know that we have everything here – the manpower, the resources and infrastructure. But at the end of the day, it is BUK or Ilorin that would issue the certificate. For the courses that were not offered by BUK at the graduate level which are Guidance and Counseling, Educational Management, Primary and Educational Management, we partnered with University of Ilorin on those courses. We chose Ilorin in order to add up upon the ones offered by Bayero in order to take care of the needs of our people in Kano State. We need education technology because we are advancing rapidly, we need education management because we are establishing various schools, we need counseling for our students and we need primary education to take care of our primary schools.

A team of the National Universities Commission (NUC) came to this institution. What was the purpose of their visit?
The NUC as the main regulator of all tertiary institutions has the power of allowing universities to mount programmes based on the result of the accreditation exercise they undertake in a particular university. So, since we are now going to offer our degrees in the names of these universities, the universities must inform the NUC of our intention to mount degrees in their names. So, part of the procedure for NUC to recognize you is for them to come and see whether what Bayero and University of Ilorin told them is true.
They came here for resource assessment as part of the requirements. NUC must also know that part of what these universities are doing is now at Sa’adatu Rimi College. After the assessment, they would recommend us for the programmes and inform the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to include our college in their brochure that they offer so and so courses. It is also from there that the NYSC would be informed so that when our students graduate, then they would go for their national services. We hope to begin admitting students by 2014 when the NUC endorses the programmes.

You cited human resources and facilities you have as the justification for seeking to mount a degree programme. Could you give an account of those resources?
This college is lucky because we have the manpower. We have about 1,438 staff members out of which about 731 are academic. Among the academic staff, about 158 have masters’ degrees while 52 are undergoing their doctorate degrees both within and outside Nigeria.
So, an institution that has this kind of human resource can undertake any programme. I don’t want to be selfish but I could say that even the newly established universities don’t have the manpower that we have in this college. Don’t forget that this college was established since 1981 and 30 years are not a joke.

Considering your human resource which you said is more than that of some universities, do you have plans to make the college a university itself?
Yes, that’s our ambition because we need a university of education just like we have universities of technology today. Our intention first is to learn from the beginning. We would learn from our affiliation with Bayero University and University of Ilorin for the next six months and see what it takes to be a university. We will assess ourselves, we will know our weaknesses and strengths and by that we would surely make a demand to the governor to seek for his indulgence to convert this college into a university.
 We hope to see this college turn into a university within the next two years. We have the facilities. We are now providing road networks, we have ICT centre and our students are registering online. We have come of age. So, within the next year, we would start thinking of becoming a university.  

What are your challenges?
Well, the challenges are not many because it has to do with the people. Whatever we need, the government is doing. The challenge ahead of us is the support we need from the public. We need patronage because people are more inclined to the word university than college of education. You find someone going to Bayero University to read diploma than to go to college to study NCE which is far more worthy and valuable than a diploma. So if the people accept the fact that the degree we are going to offer is in the name of Bayero, so if they cannot get places in Bayero, they can come here and be admitted. And at the end of the day, the certificate that would be issued to them is from BUK.
Again, we need philanthropists to come and assist poor candidates by paying their tuition fees or even maintaining their coming and going. And the first issue is that the government cannot do everything alone. If the government can sponsor 500 students why shouldn’t an individual sponsor two to three individuals to complement the little the government is doing? If the public is interested, no matter who comes into government in the future, he has to work with the structures he found on ground. But if the public decides not to support education, then everyone can come and abandon the good work of the government because continuity in Nigeria is lacking. That’s the problem we are facing.  

Talking about the need for individuals to assist students to enroll in your college, does it mean that your services are expensive?
We have almost 27,000 students in this institution, if we are not admitting, where did they come from? How many universities can boast of having even 10,000 students? Even BUK doesn’t have more than 30,000 to 35,000 students. Students even come from neighbouring states like Jigawa and Katsina. The problem is not that of affordability but the students are often not happy being in a college than they are in a university.