We can help to reduce huge losses of FX to education annually if… – Bells VC

Jeremiah Oludele Ojediran, a professor of Agricultural Engineering and former deputy vice-chancellor, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, is the newly-appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Bells University of Technology, Ota, Ogun State. In this interview with Razaq Ayinla, he proffers solutions to issues plaguing educational system, especially tertiary education. Excerpts:

As the new Vice-Chancellor of the University, what are some of your plans for the institution?

I’m fortunate because I met on ground, a very solid foundation. Academically, all our programmes are accredited which is a very good place to start from. In terms of administration, I inherited a very robust administration on ground, well structured. Environmentally, we are doing well also. All I need to do is to complement and build on these feats. My focal point is to make sure that the University becomes e-compliant, that is, everyone should be ICT-compliant, both the students and the staff, and everything we do should be in that area, even the library which is an e-library for now, has to be upgraded such that the students can use it from the convenience of their rooms, we have grown beyond manual thing. Registration must be online, payment must be online, even accessing books in the library, we want to make it online so that our students can compete favourably outside the country. They are doing well now, but we want it to be better we need to upgrade the staff also. Like I told you, I inherited a lot of good things. But, we need to upgrade them and give them conducive environment to work. Research must go on and we need to upgrade it such that the students will do environmentally-relevant courses, so that we move further. We want to apply technology in all areas. There are quite a number of working class people, who cannot leave their jobs and come back to school, so we need to design courses they can fit into, we want to design Conversation Programmes and other things that will move them up without having to leave their jobs. If we are attractive to people on ground, they won’t go out. I was shocked when I got to Ghana; our people rush to Ghana and Ghana institutions are not better, I can say it anywhere, our standards are very good in this country. Some of our students here go to the University College in Ghana, and their private universities are not better than our own here, in fact, you can’t compare them with ours.

Private universities’ owners and administrators have been clamouring for the extension of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) to private universities for better academics and running of such universities, do you think this is necessary and to what extent will it affect tertiary education in this country? 

You are touching on a very sore point – TETFUND. When you think about that, you get a bit worried, it is a worrisome situation. Private and public universities are producing same set of graduates for the same economy, and you (government) decided that I will support this, I don’t need to support this, and at the end of the day, the two students will go to the same economy, they both contribute to the same economy. TETFUND has been grossly unfair to the private universities because we are in the same environment. Private universities need to be seen by government as assisting them, but they are looking at private universities as being a money-making venture, No. It is a tripartite thing, the owners, the government and the parents. As at 2005, a student will spend almost N3 million per year, especially Engineering and Medical students, how much do we charge such students? At the end of the day, whatever he pays, you subtract, say N600,000 from N3 million, where do you get the balance? And there is no free lunch anywhere. If you scrap all private universities, where will students go to? We are always talking about foreign exchange, capital flight, it will be worse. So, government should change its perception towards private universities, we are working together. They should also know that private universities are consistent. When your children enter, you will know when they will finish the programmes, it does not happen in public universities. So, government should see us as assisting them in that area. How will students pay amounts that can cover our facilities? We need assistance, government should see owners of private universities as people that are assisting them and they should assist the owners too. It is an issue government should look into. So, TETFUND must come out and assist private universities as they do to others.

No doubt, Bells University of Technology is located in the midst of industries in Sango-Ota, Igbesa-Agbara axis of Ogun State, and being the University of Technology, how has this impacted positively on industrialisation and industrial growth?

We have a Committee called Bells University of Technology Industrial Co-operation (BUTICO) that is committee that takes care of that. We are well located within the industries all over the place; we are linking up with them. You can imagine our Mechanical Engineering producing parts for these industries. Once we know their needs, where do we get their parts from? That is the linkage I’m talking about. Quite a number of things they are importing, we can produce them if that linkage is there. Some industries already here; Flour Mills of Nigeria has been here to check what we do, how can we help them? Of recent, Five Alive brought its drinks here and we had to analyse it. The analysis was done in our laboratories here, so that they can be sure of it being edible enough. These are the things we are doing. But, BUTICO still needs to go out more to find out the needs for these industries.

As new Vice-Chancellor, who has spent over three decades in the academia, what are the new innovations you have brought in, bearing in mind that Bells University itself has recorded quite a number of achievements over the years?

I would like to improve the standards of the University. When students can stay at home, register and do everything online, I will feel fulfilled. When students can go to the library and read online, we are even trying to ensure that books in all disciplines can be bought online. Another one is that I want to sit down in my office and check if students attend lectures, it means, they must click in, when they click in, I will see that lectures are going on in a particular class, and the lecturer can sit in his office and has lecture with the students, even outside working hours. If by five years, I get to that point, I will shout Halleluyah. That is the way, I think we need to go, the world has gone paperless.

What about accreditation and introduction of new courses during your tenure?

All our programmes are accredited for now. What we do is we are introducing new courses. First of all is post graduate level, we want to run PGD, Msc, PhD in all programmes,  and the new programmes like Civil Engineering, Information and Media Technology and it will be ICT-oriented and some other courses. 

Considering the economic recession and huge financial requirement which privately-owned universities need to survive in this country, what would you be doing to improve the institution’s internally-generated revenue?

In fact, the University’s Council itself is interested in that. We are establishing what we call Bells Ventures. In fact, I pray it grows to become Bells Business Company. There is a bakery here, we need to expand it. There is water industry in which we want to inject fund into; we need to expand it, but we do not want to jump the gun. NAFDAC has been here, once they give us Registration number, then, we can hit the ground running. We are also thinking of a Publishing House and Printing Press because so much paper is used around here. I was a Director of Printing Press in Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho for six years, so, I know what I’m talking about.

What is the place of entrepreneurship in Nigeria’s educational system and what are you doing as a University to ensure that your products are employers of labour not job-seekers?

There is new horizon going on here. Our focal point is to produce students that will be employers of labour, not job-seekers, that is where Entrepreneurship comes in, and I’m glad to tell you that some of our students are already having Cottage industries on their own; that tells you that some of our students will be employers of labour. We are ensuring that Entrepreneurship and Skills Development are improved upon to really make our students, employers of labour.