The Authorities of Evan Enwerem University, Owerri has faulted the gubernatorial candidates of Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN), Chief Godwin Ifeanyichukwu Araraume and his All Progressive Grand Alliance Counterpart(APGA), Chief Rochas Okorocha who promised free education in the state, as their campaign strategy.
Apparently disturbed by such a flimsy promise to bamboozle the voters in the state, the university authority challenged all those who make such promise to name any nation in the world where they can cite as an example where education is free.
Addressing the Press in Owerri, the Pro-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Chidi Ibe described such a promise as a hoax. He made it clear to the politicians who promise to offer free education as their campaign strategy that there is nowhere in the world where tertiary education is free. The University Don reminded such people that qualitative education is always money intensive and required painstaking evaluation of both human and material resources.
And in order to meet up with the required standard, the university authority submitted for approval the sum of N6.3 billion to the State House of Assembly. “I did an expanded survey with the assistance of the Register and found that the school fee of 12,500 was by far the lowest, not only in the South East, but also in the entire country.”
“The consensus was that whereas primary and, to some extent, secondary education should be free and compulsory, the issue of tertiary education is a different ball game, requiring very painstaking evaluation of both human and material resources needed”.
The Pro-chancellor therefore advised that any political debate on education in the sate should rather focus on the imperative of providing qualitative tertiary education for current students and creating additional university places for the teeming JAMB graduates of the state origin.
According to him, Vice Chancellors of Universities in the South East met in 2008 and their calculations was that it would cost an average of N245,000 a year to train the average undergraduate and N129,000 for a post graduate student.
This, He said, excludes the cost of development of infrastructure. “So, rather than divert attention from the real issues about tertiary education in the state with bloated promises we should be urging ourselves to do more”