A Governing Council Will Help Drive Our Objectives—OnyekwereA Governing Council Will Help Drive Our Objectives—OnyekwereDR. NNAMDI ONYEKWERE is the Provost, Rivers State College of Health Science & Technology. In this interview, he speaks on key issues affecting the college. Excerpts:
Why was the Rivers State College of Health Science & Technology really established?
Basically, it was established to provide health manpower to the state and local government health services. We came into existence following a bill passed into law by the Rivers State House of Assembly in 2001, which was signed into law by the Odili-led administration. Under that law, we changed the old School of Health Technology and School of Public Health Nursing to become the College of Health Technology . Actually, that date was 17th, August, 2001.
What have been the challenges so far?
The basic challenge that we have had was that despite passing the law and signing it into bill, government never really took up the challenges of bringing what was passed into law into being. Basically, you wont believe that it was from 2001 to 2003 that an acting provost was appointed for the college. It took from then to 2006 to have a substantive provost. Normally, an institution of that level should have a Governing Council, which should help drive the programmes of the college. But none has been appointed for the institution.
What is the real implication of not having a Governing Council?
The implication is that the National Board for Technical Education will not approve our programmes to run a National or Ordinary Diploma level. Without a Governing Council, you don't have the autonomy to run at that level, and as a result, the Health Ministry takes over the role of the Governing Council. That automatically puts the college under the ministry, and that has been a major challenge.
Is it possible for the College to set-up a Governing Council on its own or the move has to be initiated by the government?
There is no way we the College can set-up a Governing Council on its own. We really need government intervention to have this council in place. In fact, we are appealing to government to assist us in this direction so that we can consolidate those programmes that we lost their accreditation. Basically, there are so many things we need the government to do for us, so that some of our courses can be accredited by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). Because our programmes are structured for middle level manpower, without aiming to train at degree level, we offer many certificate courses. At the moment we don't run diploma programmes except in Environmental, because it is awarded by the West African Health Examination Board.
We need accreditation in some courses, but what we have on ground cannot fetch us accreditation. Like our hostel, it was built since the college started more than 20 years ago. More courses have been introduced, programmes have been expanded, yet we are managing what the school started with. With the introduction of these programmes, we need more classes, more laboratory facilities to meet up. The programme is also changing the requirement. When the College started, there was no need for computer, but now, everybody must be computer literate. We have introduced so many things that were not there in the past to keep abreast with current challenges.
How many departments do you have?
We have eight schools Public Health Nursing, Community Health Extension Programme, Medical Laboratory Technology, Health Information Management, Environmental Health Technology, Dental Technology, Pharmacy Technician, and the General Department called the Remedial and General Studies School. These are the programmes we run, and they are geared towards producing manpower, basically for the primary health care sector.
Is your admission open to non-indigenes and what is your fee?
Yes our admission is open to non-indigenes, but we admit more of indigenes. The truth is that we favour indigenes more, but that does not mean that outsiders who meet our admission requirements are not admitted. The admission requirement vary, because of the programmes. Some need five credits, some are lesser. The junior community health extension workers need one credit and two passes; for the Environment, they need five credits.
Our students only pay N3000 for hostel accommodation; N500 for library; N500 for Environmental Sanitation; and on admission, they pay N5000 for development. When you put that together, the returning students pay around N8000, while the new ones pay up to N21, 000, because they pay for uniform, ID card, SUG fee and so on.
In some states, there is a form of government support that students get. Do your students enjoy such?
They were enjoying it. At the initial stage when this college started, the government needed the manpower, and so started with incentives to encourage people to join. On admission, you were treated like an employee, and paid a salary. When the government thought that it had enough, many local governments stopped paying. Some started paying stipends, while some stopped outrightly. You might find one or two local governments paying, but most are not paying.
How is the college funded?
There are two things here. You talk about you giving all the money you realized to the government, and the government giving you monthly subvention or you keep your money, and don't get subvention from government. Government will ask you to run your institution based on what you generate. That is the system we are operating. But the bad part is that most of our students are not from rich families, so if we charge them commercial rates, most of them wont cope. The Rivers State government pays our salaries, and give us N245, 000 monthly. So, we run the school through internally generated revenue.
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