The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has commended and credited the Governing Council, management, staff, and students of Yaba College of Technology on the excellent maintenance culture of the 77-year-old institution in structures and beauty of its environs.
He gave the accolades in his address to the members of the academic community during his working visit to the college on Friday.
Speaking at the Yusuf Grillo Auditorium, Alausa lauded the entire stakeholders for making the institution’s ambience captivating, with happiness radiating the air of the institution.
He declared: “I am happy, impressed and delighted for all that have seen.
“I am deeply impressed by the level of care and commitment that has gone into maintaining the college’s infrastructures, this speaks of the management’s dedication to excellence, and I commend you for upholding such high standards.
“The Federal Government is fully committed to supporting this institution as it continues to grow and evolve.”
Alausa disclosed that President Bola Tinubu has approved the transformation of the college to a university, stating that the due process will soon be completed.
The college, which is Nigeria’s premier and prestigious polytechnic institution in Nigeria, is widely regarded for its academic rigour and commitment to producing skilled professionals with more than 200 staff having Doctorate degree in a range of disciplines.
The college is more than equipped to meet the standards required for university status, he said.
Dr. Alausa underscored the College’s track record of excellence, particularly in technical and vocational education, making it a perfect fit for the upgrade.
He added: “This institution is a living legacy with its impressive faculty and academic excellence, and infrastructure is not only ready but more than qualified to become a university.
“The credit for this achievement should go to President Tinubu, whose passion for education and his belief in the potential of Nigerian youths have driven this monumental step forward.”
As part of his visit, Dr. Alausa also took the opportunity to commission completed projects and inspect various ongoing projects in the College.
He lauded the College’s exceptional maintenance culture, which has ensured that even older infrastructure remain in excellent condition, contributing to a conducive learning environment for both students and faculty alike.
He stressed further that one of the reasons the Tinubu administration is focusing on technical and vocational education and adding entrepreneurship to it is to stem the “Japa” syndrome.
He said: “We are not taking the issue of artificial intelligence, robotics, coding, and others with levity.
“We know that if our youths are good at those things, they can be in Nigeria and be working for firms in many parts of the world, and they will be earning foreign exchange.
“That will help stem this Japa of a thing, where people would travel abroad to do menial jobs.”
Alausa noted that for over three decades, Nigeria abandoned technical and vocational education and focused on producing graduates who are always after white-collar jobs, but that the focus has now changed.
He said: “In Europe and other places, the focus has been on incorporating TVET to become a core aspect of their education system, and that is what we are doing now.
“We need education that would aid manufacturing and technological innovations and that would also lead to a robust private sector, which will drive societal growth and development.”
In his welcome address, the Rector of the institution, Dr. Ibraheem Abdul, deeply appreciated the Minister for his visit, while stating that it marked a significant milestone in the College’s academic excellence and institutional development journey.
Engr. Abdul disclosed that as Nigeria’s premier polytechnic, the college has remained at the forefront of Technical and Vocational Education for more than seven decades.
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He said: “The College has recorded notable achievements of securing re-accreditation for 26 programmes and approval for two new programs, strengthening stakeholder engagement with students and staff unions, enhancing staff welfare through commendation letters and an improved support system, launching the students’ work-study programme to provide hands-on experience while studying, establishing Identity Advisory Committee and Business Incubation Hubs in each school, creating the YABATECH Industry Alliance Group to foster industry partnership, institutionalising a colloquium for Ph.D holders and successfully hosting its Inaugural Lecture, signing Memorandum of Understanding with local and International Institutions.
Dr. Abdul also stated that the challenges of the college cut across reconstruction of Bakassi hostel, which was destroyed by fire, reducing the available accommodation space for students, construction of a new building for the School of Art, Design and Printing to meet increasing student enrollment, development of staff quarters to improve welfare and enhance productivity, expansion of existing infrastructure to accommodate the growing student population, and strengthening financial sustainability through increased internally generated revenue.
He noted that YABATECH is committed to expanding global partnership to enhance academic excellence, improving research capabilities to contribute to national development, implementing skill-driven curricula to empower graduates with self-employment opportunities and enhancing security measures to sustain a peaceful and conducive atmosphere.
The Rector affirmed that the visit of the Minister to the College underscores the federal government’s commitment and institutional development, he appreciated the Minister’s support and look forward to further collaboration in addressing the institution challenges and realising the ambitious goals.
The Chairman of the Governing Council, Prof. Funsho Afolabi, explained that since the Minister assumed office, the institution has been following virtually and conventionally all his good office activities and pronouncements.
Prof. Afolabi stressed that the experts at both Governing Council and staff levels have used scientific, technical, psychoanalytic and psycho-dynamic models and frameworks design to study how the minister has been using the tools kit of the federal ministry of education, to first key into the Presidential Renewed Hope Agenda and secondly using the methods of planned concern, signal monitoring and proximity control to understand both the surface and deep behaviours of all institutions of Higher learning in Nigeria, and the ministerial presence in the college will confirm how YABATECH has been responding to the yearnings of the Federal Ministry of Education.
In the course of the visit, the minister commissioned YABATECH Digital Technology Academy, launched its ICT Skills Hub for Computer and Phone Repairs and inspected the sites of its N50 billion Endowment Projects, toured the All-Girls Tech (GESP) hub, projects under construction and the approved proposed 13-storey building site.
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