COEASU tasks FG to upgrade colleges to varsity status

The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union has called on the Federal Government to upgrade four colleges of education to university status, stressing that the necessary facilities and personnel for the move are available in the affected institutions.

It listed the institutions as Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo; Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri; Federal College of Education, Kano, and Federal College of Education, Zaria, Kaduna State.

The South-East Coordinator, Mr. Bede-Blaise Onwuagboke, who addressed a press conference in Abuja on Friday, said the government should implement the proposal submitted by a committee headed by the Executive Secretary of the National University Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie, which recommended the upgrade of the four colleges as degree-awarding institutions.

The union contended that the government should go beyond paying lip service to education by upgrading the identified colleges to university status and setting up specialised university for training teachers just as it had done for agriculture and technology.

COEASU applauded the decision of the government to establish nine universities, but said it would have achieved better result in the production of more and quality teacher-graduates if it had considered upgrading the four colleges of education to universities/degree awarding status.

Onwuagboke added that the Yaba College of Technology and Kaduna Polytechnic that were also considered for upgrading to university status, had been empowered through the constitution of an Implementation Committee to commence processes of transiting to the new status.

The COEASU coordinator expressed worries that the four colleges have not been empowered in any way to actualize the proposal, adding that the institutions were the oldest education colleges in the country and have been running degree courses in education for over three decades.

Onwuagboke, who is also the Chairman, Joint Committee of Trade Unions at Alvan Ikoku College of Education, explained that the colleges had been certified by the NUC accreditation team and given 100 per cent rating in the last accreditation exercise.

According to him, the NUC accreditation team was in support of the quality of lecturers in the four colleges whom he said have requisite experiences coupled with the possession of Masters and Ph.D degrees in relevant fields.

The coordinator, who was flanked by the representatives of COEASU from FCE, Kano and ACE, Ondo respectively, Bashir Ibrahim and Smart Olugbeko, warned against abandoning the proposal to upgrade the institutions, which he said would be detrimental to the education sector.

Onwuagboke said, “Despite the claim of the Federal Government that no nation can rise above the quality of its teachers, yet the government has not been forthcoming in establishing a specialized university for training of teachers just as it has done for agriculture and technology where universities of agriculture and technology were established respectively.”