The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel has revealed plans to establish a College of Science and Technology that will run as an intermediary programme to prepare students into Science and bridge the gap of effective science learning preceding tertiary education.
He has also solicited collaborations with the University of Lagos in the areas of personnel training and manpower development said the state is set to rejig the curricular of education generally and that of Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU) through collaborative programmes and entrepreneurial courses packaged to establish students after their school year.
Governor Udom Emmanuel made these known on Monday while receiving a delegation from the University of Lagos, his Alma Mata, led by the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe in a courtesy visit at Government House, Uyo.
“So we are trying to rejig the curricular, we want to bridge a gap of intermediary education the way you see in other places, so we are thinking of establishing a College of Science and Technology that will serve as an intermediate programme that will prepare people to come into science because in most cases students leave secondary school and gain admissions into the University, and most secondary schools don’t have the same standards, so we are trying to bridge that gap and it is an area we need a whole lot of assistance”.
“We want collaboration with you in our tertiary institution Akwa Ibom State University, (AKSU) I am sure the Commissioner for Education with Vice-Chancellor of AKSU will make a presentation at Exco very soon in these areas we want collaboration especially in the area of training our people, lecturers and a whole lot, this is because the original vision of that institution was to specialize in Science and Technology”.
The Chief Executive Officer of the state also indicated that plans are underway to formalize empowerment programmes at the skills acquisition centre established by the state government to create jobs for youths, calling on the University of Lagos to partner with the state in areas of manpower development and entrepreneurial courses in the centre.
“This year we announced that we are declaring a state of emergency in the education sector beginning from the basic level, rejig the system, recruit better teachers and this is an area we want UNILAG CONSULT to handle for us.
“We have a whole lot of areas we will collaborate as government, I have a department headed by youths all they do is entrepreneurial training and set up, but I see that I can formalize that and what I am doing right now is we will set up a full institution, which after the first year of studies in that school, one starts earning money”.
Governor Emmanuel thanked them for the visit and promised to support the institution host the Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA).
In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor University of Lagos, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who described Governor Udom Emmanuel’s leadership as unique in the state said as an alumnus he has made the institution proud and expressed readiness to partner with the state in the manpower development of the state’s tertiary institution.
“We want to acknowledge your contributions in the areas of industrialization and power and we want to assure you that if there is any area you want us to collaborate in studies, we will be ready to collaborate with the state.
“We are bringing on board two major things, we are ready to collaborate with you concerning the young university, just like the Borno State University that we are going to train their lecturers and some of their lectures who had to do PhD definitely we will be able to assist them because of the collaboration we have with other tertiary institution outside the country it will be easy for them to do their research work.
“The second thing is a collaboration with the government in areas of studies, you want to test your feasibility, and we will do it”.
