By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja.
PROF. Salisu Ogbo Usman, Rector of Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja, has assured that the management of the institution will continue to change and invent new strategies in maintaining peace and meaningful development.
The Rector disclosed this in a chat with members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kogi State Council who paid him a courtesy call at his office in Lokoja.
He said that the primary responsibility of every leader remains Security, welfare and advancement of his organisation adding that through different strategies, cultism and Examination Malpractices had been decapitated and crushed.
Prof. Ogbo Usman said that upon assumption of duty as Rector of the Polytechnic, he had to jump start his administration with policies that would reshape the institution without minding whose ox is gored.
These, according to him included the stoppage of the sale of textbooks and hand-outs to students which had hitherto fueled insecurity and adversely affected reading culture and seriousness among students.
The Rector said that the decision drew a lot of ire from those who were benefiting from the anomaly but it solved a whole lot of problems in addressing some security challenges and unseriousness among students.
He pointed out that it would amount to trouble for a Lecturer to fail a student who bought his textbook for N5,000 even if he didn’t do well in his Continuous Assessment and the Examinations.
“It solved a lot of things. One of the problems that it solved is the problem of insecurity. students that struggled and gave you 5,000 to buy your textbook.
“Whether you like it or not, whether the person wrote anything in the answer booklet or not. Once you do not pass the person, he will begin to look for you”, he said.
Prof. Ogbo hinted that the problem of unseriousness of students and dwindling reading culture began after introduction of “Key Points” for WAEC and JAMB subjects where students only ready and memories answers to pass.
He said that because of the management policy on the sale of textbooks by lecturers, students were now very serious reading their books and not only are they interested in reading real textbooks, they research and go on-line apart from going to the library.
Ogbo said he was accosted by another line of thought when the father of a student withdrawn for poor performance asked if he could be accommodated in another course.
“Now that you have to send him to me, is there any way you can reaccommodate him in a different programme”, the father had asked.
On this note, the Professor of Political Science said, the Polytechnic decided to into collaboration with Nigeria/Korea Friendship Institute to accommodate students in learning different trades.
Prof. Usman said the Polytechnic had opened different directorates to expand the horizon of opportunities for seamless management of the students and the institution.
“We created a Directorate of Legal Services. It was not in place to before. We created a Directorate of Quality Assurance, we created the Directorate of Fiscal Planning. We created the Directorate of the Rights, Directorate of Sports, Directorate of Research and Innovation”, he said. (Ends)