– says what people termed expensive was illegal collection by staff and students which his administration has addressed.
The Vice Chancellor, Abia State University Uturu, Prof. Eliezer Uche Ikonne has debunked the rumour making the rounds that Abia State University was expensive noting that what people called expensive was actually illegal collection and extortion by both staff and students which his administration has fought to a standstill.
Prof. Ikonne stated this in an exclusive interview with ABIA ONLINE, observed that what people said was expensive was the illegal collection by both staff (Teaching and non-teaching) and students. He explained that based on research and in a genuine comparison with other neighbouring Universities, Abia State University could not be said to be expensive.
He explained that ” what we did was to make sure that the only money you pay is the legal money that is approved by the University. You can imagine somebody studying Medicine or Law, for one academic session, we pay one hundred and twelve thousand Naira (N112, 000)- just that. So if a student is brilliant and graduates within the six years, you pay less than N800 thousand to become a Medical Doctor.
How much did people pay in private Nursery Schools, so you can’t say it’s expensive. It is these illegal collection that people do that made people say ABSU is expensive; so it was difficult for me to fight my colleagues. But I did.”
He disclosed that the University has banned the use of handouts and instead constituted a Book Review Committee whose work is to review books written by lecturers as well as fix the price of books. The Committee also recommend approved books that would be used by students on any course and such books are to be sold at the University bookshop.
“If you are putting anything in print, you bring your manuscript, send it to the book Committee. They will review it and make sure it is relevant to the course content and if they publish it, they know how much it takes to publish. They will just put a little margin for your effort; and you don’t sell it in classroom – it is sold in the school bookshop. The students go there and buy the book. You just make marginal profit.
With that, we have been able to control a lot of extortions, a lot of illegal collections.” Said Prof. Ikonne.
The University Head further informed that the incidences of missing script have been defeated because the student’s result are now being upload online.
The University Don who expressed satisfaction with the level of progress recorded since he assumed office as the 7th substantive Vice Chancellor of ABSU, reveled with enthusiasm and gratitude to God that:
“It requires prudent financial management and financial engineering to keep the school in session – if you know for the past 4 years since we came on board, by the grace of God, we have not had any internal strike; we have run uninterrupted academic calendar, so that a parent can budget, ‘if my child enters a 4 year programme, this is when he would be graduating’ and that is when he is graduating; that is the economy of education while do people their children to Ghana, it is not that Ghana education is better than ours, it doesn’t have more quality than ours – it is because of consistency of academic calendar.
“If you grade a 4 year programme, you know when you will graduate but because of incessant strike here, it disrupts the training. It makes it even more expensive. For us here, we have run uninterruptedly our academic calendar for the past four years.”
On the relationship between his administration and staff and students, the Professor of Optometry described it as very cordial maintaining that because the university management has consistently met the demands of these bodies, the Unions have become part of his administration.
According to him “You know I told you I’ve been here for pretty of a time and in the previous years, elections into the students’ body used to be violent – as if you are vying for the Local Government Chairman. But since we came on board, it has been peaceful because nobody has interfered, we allow them to elect whosoever they will, we will work with the person.
Every union, the result of every union is for the welfare of their members, if the administration is caring for your welfare, the Union becomes part of the administration. So both the staff Unions and Students’ Union, they become part of our administration.”
Prof. Ikonne revealed that as part of endearing himself to both staff and students, he, on resumption of office, introduced what he called ‘a Town Hall Meeting’ the both Unions where issues of concern are sorted.
Hear him ” I hold Town Hall meetings periodically with staff – both teaching and non-teaching, I hold Town Hall meetings with student, that day I declare it freedom day; speak whatever you want to speak in any language, abuse me if you want, whatever but remember if you give me, I give you back, so the best thing is let us interact on natural basis and with that you close the gap and stop rumours.
It is when there is no means of communication that you see rumours but that forum creates opportunity for them to speak their minds and hear from me, so I will say the relationship has been very very cordial to the extent that the first time we had this forum, the Traditional Council of the Students’ body surprised me by conferring on me a title of ‘OKAAOMEE;’ that they have never done it to any Vice Chancellor in this place; that all these things I said I would do, that I have done all of them; that the students are the beneficiaries. So they conferred on me the title of ‘OKAAOMEE of ABSU’ by the Traditional Rulers Council of the Students’Union. That is the index of appreciation for what we have done.”
Continuing, he said that the University under his watch has involved students in the decision making process in the University by including them in committees that discuss issues that affect the students’ welfare.
He informed that with the full support of the State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, the University has never reneged in fulfilling her own part of the bargain in salary payment as it has consistently paid staff salaries as and when due. That way he said, the staff have constantly delivered the goods which is quality service which he said the University management always demanded from them.
Prof. Ikonne maintained that with the involvement of staff in the administration, it has restored the confidence of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the University management so much so that “they cooperate with us, when the money is not there, they know it’s not there; that is why we have run an uninterrupted academic calendar.”
On his message to the University stakeholders, including the founding fathers, staff and students as well as parents and that alumni association, Prof Uche Ikonne was as modest as ever, saying: “Our service is quality service. Services expected of a university and in our core mandate of teaching, research and community service, it is quality; it’s of global standard of what you expect from any university in the world.
And that is why our research activities – this place is like a beehive of research activities through TETFund sponsoring, at the first instance, 38 research topics, now we have 43. We are competing and we won the sponsorship of National Research Fund from TETFund and we are preparing ourselves to be a Centre of Excellence in the area of comparative advantage which is our core service.
So there are ongoing research and we are doing more proposals, so Abia State University has come alive in our quality service delivery,” Prof. Ikonne concluded.
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