The Rector , Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Prof. Augustine Uchechukwu Nweze, in this interview with Journalists on his five years on saddle the made it very clear that the institution was the cheapest in the country in terms of tuition and other statutory fees charged by Nigerian universities. Our correspondent was there
You assumed office on June 10, 2016. This is five years now. After five years, what have you achieved?
By the grace of God and courtesy of his Excellency, Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the executive governor of Enugu state I am the current Rector of IMT. Yes, by the grace of God, if and only if God will help us and His Excellency actually his dream of making IMT a full-fledged university or stand-alone University that will be my take away.
Because, history will remember him as the Governor that upgraded IMT from Polytechnic to a university, and once history remembers him, history will also remember me as the Rector that piloted IMT and it metamorphosed from a Polytechnic to a university.
So if we can realize that, I will thank God. But assume we were not able to realize this; we have taken a very bold step. I am the 16th Rector.
The first 15th Rectors were not able to achieve the affiliation status, but as the 16th Rector, I have demonstrated sufficiently the need to embrace degree programs because the average student prefers more or less university education to Polytechnic education and if you are a good marketer, you will give the consumers what they want.
The quality education vis-a -vis the money involved. Many students complain about money paid in the higher institution. What do you have to say about that?
No, I must tell you. IMT collects the cheapest school fees throughout the country. Up till now, our school fees in the 12 calendar months were N40, 000. I did not say per semester, but the full academic session of 12 calendar months is N40, 000.
You will agree with me even those in nursery schools, they pay more than N40, 000 per term and you know there are three terms in a session and if you more than N40, 000 in a term you multiply it by 3, obviously they are paying more than N100 per session.
But here in IMT, is N40, 000 for one academic session of 12 calendar months. And there is provision for paying by installment, N20, 00. That is why I said it is more or less free. The cheapest you can get anywhere.
What about financial leakages in some departments?
As far as IMT is concerned, you cannot charge a student extra one kobo without the approval of the governing council. And once a governing council approves that one kobo or one naira for journal or anything, it must be paid into an IMT account. And what is more, we don’t issue hand written receipts, our receipts are system generated.
That was why, when we wanted to introduce this, some lecturers, and normally, you can’t be salt, even salt, nobody takes salt, you cannot be salt that everybody should take, and I have also said that even salt, not everybody takes salt.
So some people wanted to resist it, why should we start with CBT exams? Because we now saw that if you computerized, with hat automation, if you pay school fees and you are coming to write that exam, which CBT, that is the only time if you key in your registration number, the system will open for you because the system
IMT is trying to diversify, for example, if you go down there, you will find the fish pound, we started it about two years ago, almost throughoutthe year, we have fish there and it has been helping us. In addition to that, we have an entrepreneur development center. We bake our own bread, we make our own water, we make soap, paint, the students mold the blocks for the development center and the students lay them because we are preparing them to be self-sufficient or independent by the time they leave this place. If you go to the development center, the courses there are compulsory, like sewing, bread making etc. Others are fish ponds.
And once you don’t have access, you can’t write an exam. So that has completely taken care of anything about leakages. So all the payments are in the bank and the fees are computer generated and if you go to the departments, the only thing frankly
speaking, some departments may have what you call departmental dues, which essentially is for students because every department is encouraged to have students’ association whereby they can go for social gathering like one of the bereaved, or something, they can go. So that is the only one, and even so, it is regulated.
What about internally generated revenue, is it encouraging?
Apart from School fees, which is the major source of income, IMT is trying to diversify, for example, if you go down there, you will find the fish pound, we started it about two years ago, almost throughoutthe year, we have fish there and it has been helping us.
In addition to that, we have an entrepreneur development center. We bake our own bread, we make our own water, we make soap, paint, the students mold the blocks for the development center and the students lay them because we are preparing them to be self-sufficient or independent by the time they leave this place. If you go to the development center, the courses there are compulsory, like sewing, bread making etc. Others are fish ponds.
What is that character that has been following you?
It is not for me to access myself because I can’t be a judge on my own matters. But my major concern which by the grace of God we are already there, is to raise the bar in the administration, either in the Polytechnic or in the university so that whoever that is going to take over from me must be a very high jumper otherwise, he would not be able to cross that bar.
That is my major concern and that is why we are talking about academic programmes all of them being fully accredited, talking about infrastructural development, talking about quality manpower so that we will be on top of the whole situation.
In your leadership, there was a time Petitions were flying here and there against a deputy rector aspirant.. How were you able to settle that?
Well, the petitioners were not well informed, otherwise, I had to appoint a Deputy Rector to clearly enshrine in the laws of IMT and for the two Deputy Rectors appointed should follow the law and what the law says to the later. But those who were agitating, they thought PhD for example is a criterion, affiliation of Ph.D.
but is not there in the law of IMT. The only thing it would have been good for if a Deputy Rector had a Ph.D. But when we saw it was not there in the law we said okay, we can make a lecturer two who has a Ph.D. a Deputy Rector, otherwise there would be no respect, one he can’t command that respect because he is a junior lecturer.
But they have cheap lecturers who don’t have PhD and even in the angle, they want to go up the hierarchy. You can’t bring a lecturer 2 and make him a Deputy Rector.
Cheap lecturers cannot take instructions from him. So we have to discountenance the PhD which is not in our laws and then give it to a cheap lecturer. That was what happened. But those who were misinformed thought that it must be a PhD holder.
Sir, how do you combine your work with family?
It’s a question of balancing your time. For example I pray every morning before doing anything else. I do my morning devotion with my family, everybody, once you spend a night in my house, you must join us in prayer.
When we finish we can go for a small exercise and then prepare and come to work. So it has become routine. Then we stay here, we don’t have any closing time. I can stay here till 7pm 8pm and sometimes, I carry the work home. I have worked in a bank before, in ministry, been a lecturer, and when I was in ESUT when we had so many students, at a point I was teaching in the accountancy department, in fact all the departments in our faculty, Faculty of management sciences. Accountancy, businesses Administration, etc, I was teaching them. After exams I have close to 3,000 scripts to read and I do that at night because I will not be able to do that in the office so I used to work late in the nights.
Even that time if you pray, God will hear you because others are sleeping and only you will be talking to God.
That is why mid night prayers are good.
