Covenant VC wants massive investment in tertiary education
• School now first-ranked varsity in West Africa
VICE Chancellor, Covenant University (CU), Ota, Ogun State, Prof Charles Ayo, is calling for increased funding for tertiary institutions in the country, if they must contribute their quota to scholarship and overall society’s advancement.
He spoke during a recent media briefing at the institution, where he also announced that the institution was ranked first in Nigeria and West Africa in the 2015 Webometrics and Repositories ranking of universities.
The institution was also ranked 15th and 13th in Africa by the Webometrics and Repositories respectively.
Fielding questions from journalists at the briefing, Ayo stressed that tertiary institutions in Nigeria must be well funded, if the quality of their products must improve, as this was part of what earned CU the recognition.
According to him, managers of tertiary institution must, in addition show more commitment to their assignments and adequately manage resources at their disposal.
“If we must rewrite the history of Nigerian higher education, if we must improve the quality in higher education, all hands must be on deck. Looking at Covenant University, there is 24-hour power supply and unlimited access to Internet. We have massive investments in teaching facilities and currently in the university, we have about five teleconferencing centres,” the vice chancellor stated.
He continued, “Other universities may not be able to do this, but the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) is there to access. Is it not disheartening to note that with the enormity of funds available in TETFund, some universities are not able to access because of the culture of indiscipline? It is a pity that the Federal Government did not involve private universities in the scheme. We would have taught them how to utilise such funds for the betterment of our dear country.”
He, therefore, charged managers of tertiary institutions in the country to map out set goals on a yearly basis so as to catapult them to international platform.
For instance, “This administration came on board in November 2012 with a mandate to get the university listed among the top 10 in the world by 2022. This was christened vision 10:2022. When we came on board, the university was ranked 10 in Nigeria and about 100 in Africa. Today, the story is different, it is simply an act of God.”
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