The Provost, Abia State College of Education Technical Arochukwu, (ASCETA), World Bank consultant, Dr Philip Ntoh, in this interview with Assistant Politics Editor, Daniel Kanu, speaks on the challenges, giant strides and funding of ASCETA. He also faults assessment tool used for the economy rather than the multi-sectoral approach.
Challenges of the institution?
I have been asked this question almost all the time and my answer has been that the institution I inherited had so many challenges. In fact, I inherited an institution that was comatose. It was ranging from low students enrolment, poor environment and infrastructure, poor academic standard and practices, and of course the funds.
I didn’t like blaming the past so what I did was to take the bull by the horn and began to think outside the box on the way out. The first thing was to conduct a situation analysis which I always do whenever I take up fresh assignment.
The situation analysis was to find out the cause of the problem and how to frontally tackle it.
As at now we can beat our chest proudly on what is on the ground.
We have been able to extend light to all the nooks and crannies of the institution because it was a serious problem. The school was almost in darkness.
Giant strides so far?
I have been able to reorganize our curriculum to ensure that no matter the course that you are studying you must offer a course in skill acquisition. That is the way to go and one of the ways we can come out of unemployment predicament.
A situation where you graduate with just paper on theory and there is nothing in the brain in terms of skill acquisition then there is a problem, a missing gap, there is nothing much the person can offer. There must be a direct link between our education and industry.
So in our institution, as a technical college you must offer a course in either technical or vocational education no matter your course of study: be it religion, biology or economics etc.
You must acquire one skill, which may be in barbing, hair dressing, painting, house tiling, photography, food processing and preservation, wheel balancing and alignment, auto mechanic, house wiring etc.
This will assist the students when they graduate not to be job seekers but a job creator; creating employment for others.
We must be a productive economy because without a productive population even if we borrow from the Paris Club or from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) we will still find it difficult to cope.
With the affiliation of the college to Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, students can now do straight four-year degree courses including the acquisition of relevant skills.
For the first time since the inception of the college, the present management has started the issuance of certificates to graduates of ASCETA.
Because of improved standard, over 14 courses have been accredited and there has been massive infrastructural revival.
I think there is a need to convert the school to a federal institution.
We have maintained and adopted the policy of zero –tolerance for cultism and examination malpractice and so far the institution is safe.
It’s also located in a serene environment sharing boundaries with not less than five states (Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, Rivers, Cross River, and Imo).
Conducive learning environment has been created for the students to excel, especially with quality lecturers, newly renovated hostels and other facilities.
On funding
Our intellectual governor of Abia State, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, has always risen up to the challenge. True to his qualification as a scholar, he has invested much into the institution and has shown serious interest in the development of the school through his education policy.
The governor always ensures funds are released on time. Although we are still owing salaries yet it’s more of backlog that was there even before I took over. But we are not relenting in our efforts to clear them.
Assessment of economy
The best method in assessing the economy is to use a multi-sectoral approach.
We have a country endowed with so many minerals but what has been our attitude?
We only place emphasis on crude oil and that is the major problem of Nigeria.
We have refused to tap into the rich potential in the agricultural sector as well as that of the solid minerals. We can only survive through proper diversification of the economy.
Look at the massive opportunity in agriculture.
In agriculture for instance, we have the land mass, not just land mass but fertile and arable one that we are yet to fully tap from its huge potential.
We also have very good climate condition which is conducive for agriculture. I continue to wonder why a nation with this kind of potential is not able to diversify into agriculture.
We have good climatic condition from rainy season you enter the dry season. There is nothing like snow, you know snow is not conducive for agriculture. If you go to some temperate regions they equally convert the snow into rain. Nigeria is the only country where if you lick an orange, paw- paw name it and throw it away it germinates. It is not so in the temperate region.
The truth is that we have not been able to tap on our opportunities.
A country that only places its economic emphasis on only one product will face economic doom someday. That is part of the reason we are where we are today.
The recession we talked about is because greater proportion of our GDP is from crude oil and when the price drops it affects the economy.
Had it been we diversify our economy when the crude oil is not working, agriculture is working, when agriculture is not working then solid mineral is working and other ones. But when everything revolves on crude oil, it’s an invitation to disaster waiting in the wings of time.
From what we can see government does not seem to be doing much to revive the economy towards the part of growth because a situation where the emphasis is being majorly placed on how to increase oil production, everything only on oil, then I don’t think there is prospect in that direction.