The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Kolawole Salako has explained why his university had stopped offering management courses.
He was speaking at the press conference to herald activities marking the 30th anniversary of the existence of FUNAAB at the Senate Chambers on Monday.
Professor Salako, who attributed that to a Federal Government directive to the effect that specialised tertiary institutions stop taking management courses appealed to the government to rescind its decision on that.
EduCeleb.com recalls that the Nigerian government had in 2016 embarked on the restructuring of Nigerian specialised tertiary institutions to ensure that they are in line with mandate of their establishment.
Prior to then, some specialised institutions such as universities of agriculture, technology, and medicine had been running programmes outside their mandates. Such courses include law, management and accounting.
In line with making sure they stop derailing from their main mandate, Education minister, Adamu Adamu had also issued a directive stopping the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) from listing such courses in relation to the institutions since the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) even where the nomenclature of the courses was changed.
According to JAMB spokesman, Fabian Benjamin, “Government note the unfortunate situation where universities of agriculture offer programmes in law, management courses such as accounting, banking and finance, business administration among others.
“As if that was not enough some institutions change the nomenclature of some of the courses to read for instance banking engineering, accounting technology, among other names. This is an aberration and should be stopped with immediate effect.”
But the FUNAAB VC said that the decision back then had left the fate of the undergraduates and the lecturers in the institution’s College of Management Sciences hanging. He felt the courses were still very important in the lives of the students.
He seems to be re-echoing the perspective of his predecessor, Oladele Enikuomehin who justified existence of the now scrapped management courses.
Professor Enikuomehin had told EduCeleb.com last October that his university’s academic team felt it was not enough to train the students on agriculture alone but to also include managerial and administrative skills for them to survive in the world of work.
In his words, “The Senate of the institution has started curriculum review on management courses. We need the management courses to train the students on ways to manage loans, resources, issues of industrial relations, and management of staff.”
Salako, who noted that it would have been better if the management courses had not commenced initially in the institution added that efforts were being made to get the FG to rescind the decision.
“We are talking to the stakeholders. We believe they will listen to us. It is a headache for us to disband the staff.
“Concerning the issue of the running of management courses here, it would have been better if we had not started. We are trying our best to bring back the college . But the issue is beyond the Vice Chancellor.”
On his agenda as the sixth substantive VC of the institution, Salako said he had a 12-point agenda, including leadership through democracy, diligence and discipline, promotion of research and scholarship among others.
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