Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha (OON) has called for the scrapping of the NYSC and advocated for the setting up of specialized institutions to improve standards of education.
Gov. Okorocha who spoke while delivering a speech at the 50th anniversary lecture of the ABU Zaria said the NYSC has outlived its usefulness. ‘The NYSC was set up to promote unity but that has failed, so we need to look into other areas to improve the quality of education for our youths’ he said.
Gov. Okorocha called for the establishment of specialized schools like the Law School in all fields of study to equip students with practical skills to fit into the modern society. ‘It’s worrying that some of our graduates cannot read or write but if they attend specialized schools after graduation they can have more practical skills than theoretical’, he added.
He said exposing graduates to further practical skills acquisition will also assist government to determine the placement of universities on the scale of excellence. ‘We should stop grading universities by age but by specialization which can be achieved through exposure to other graduates in a post graduate school’, he added.
Gov. Okorocha called on universities to also consider alternative sources of funding rather than relying on government for all revenue.
‘Universities can set up farms to produce food and technology forms to bid for contracts to increase interval revenue’ he said. He also called on universities to look into the bloated number of staff to save costs.
‘Most universities have a huge number of non-academic staff and other non essential staff coupled with adjunct teachers that is a drain on the resources of universities’ he stated.
Gov. Okorocha also challenged the ASUU to cooperate with university authorities to survive by reducing consistent demands for wage increases and allowances. ‘ASUU should do more than just and plan for strikes over the least problems. They should engage university authorities on ways to save costs, he said.
Gov. Okorocha however called on students to shun cultism, laziness an exam malpractices and to work hard to achieve their desired goals in future.
While urging the government to pay more attention to tertiary education, he said there is a link between the rate of development of countries with better funding of universities than those with less. ‘Countries with large number of graduates and better funding of universities belong to the developed world while those with less are under developed’ he stated.