Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State has faulted the existing model for funding tertiary education in the country.
Dickson said that the current arrangement, where all public institutions are owned and wholly funded by the government, was not sustainable and against the desired development of the education sector.
A statement by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media Relations, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, quoted the governor as having made the comment while delivering the Visitor’s address at the Maiden Matriculation Ceremony òf the University of Africa, Toru Orua, on Saturday.
He said that the University of Africa, which is owned wholly by the Bayelsa State Government, was designed as a practical model to ignite a rethink of the existing model for funding public universities in the country.
He argued that it was not realistic to have quality university education considered the bedrock of societal development which is cheaper than nursery school education even within the country.
Dickson also made the clarification that the University of Africa was owned by the Bayelsa State Government though with a different model designed to make it self-sustaining through exploring creatives means of generating revenue.
He said: “The school is owned and funded by the state government. The school is a new model. The university is a publicly owned university. We believe that the model of running tertiary institutions must change. The existing model must change.
“The universities owned by the federal and state governments rely totally on the government for their running. Look at the decline in the standard of education, the tendency of our elite to send their children to schools abroad, whose funding model is different.
“We have announced a policy that the tertiary institutions in Bayelsa would have to look inward. Governments would give grants, build infrastructure, give loans for business development. That is the new direction in Bayelsa.
“When university education is cheaper than nursery education, we are not realistic. When it is cheap, it cannot give us the quality and the innovation that we seek. When university education becomes cheaper than nursery education, then something has gone wrong.”
Dickson also said that the state government would inaugurate the Bayelsa State Students Education Loan Board in the next two weeks.
The Governor said that he had already signed the Bayelsa State Students Education Bill under which the loan board would be established into law.
He stressed that the government took the decision to initiate the Programme to avail every Bayelsa youth the opportunity of university education.
According to him, the loan would be given to Bayelsa students who would repay it while working after graduation not later than 15 years.
The Governor urged all Bayelsa youths to shun cultism, violence and criminal conducts inimical to the development of the society.
Meanwhile, a former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Turner Isoun, has called for the establishment of more universities in response to the rising demand for tertiary education in the country.
Isoun said that available data indicated that the existing universities had not been able to take care of the desire of the teeming youth populace for quality university education.
The former Minister spoke while delivering the guest lecture at the Maiden Matriculation and the First Distinguished Public Lecture Series òf the University òf Africa, Toru Orua, titled “The University of Africa: In Pursuit òf an Innovative and Sustainable University, Responding to the Challenges of a State and a Nation.”
Isoun recalled that the 160 universities in the country could only provide admission for one third of one million five hundred thousand candidates that applied for university education in a particular year which was not encouraging.
Isoun challenged the Federal Government to allocate $1billion from the Excess Crude Account to fund tertiary education, innovative research and technology.
Isoun, who commended Dickson for the establishment of the University of Africa said that funds spent on education should be considered investments which could yield high returns through improved quality of existence in the society.
He said “Thus we wish to again thank the Governor of Bayelsa State, the Honourable Henry Seriake Dickson, the Bayelsa State House of Assembly and indeed all the people of Bayelsa State for establishing the University of Africa; and thus making today’s Matriculation a reality.”
In his remarks, former Minister of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, who was chairman of the events commended the governor for the initiative to start the university.
He also urged the matriculating students to take advantage of the opportunity of the admission offered them to excel in their academic endeavors and conduct so that the institution would be proud of them.
