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| Ekweremadu, Chairman, Constitution Review Committee |
As the on-going nationwide
constitutional review exercise by the National Assembly continues, Nigerian
students are being positioned to have the powers to appoint the vice
chancellors of their various tertiary institutions.
This position was made known by an
educationist, Prof. Lai Olurode, who is current serving as a commissioner of
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently.
“... And appointment of
vice-chancellors should be decided by students,’’ Olurode proposed.
He also said that the current
constitutional review, should favour gender balance, maintaining that no gender
should be favoured over the other, even in the face of allocation of power in
the education sector.
While calling for transformation in
the education system in the country, he suggested that it will be nice for students
to have the constitutional right to appoint who will be the vice chancellor of
their institutions.
DigitalSENSEBusiness News recalls that both chambers of the National Assembly had a
remarkable consensus that the 1999 Constitution should be amended, paving the
way for the review across the nation.
“I believe the review is long
overdue. However, the method adopted
will not make us achieve our desired outcome, especially based on how
constitutions are reviewed in other developed countries. People must feel a
sense of real active participation. The review going on is just being done on
the superficial level. It is not based on clear-cut guidelines. There is no
representation.
According to him, a constitution
must have legitimacy before it is accepted, stressing that the 1999
Constitution was forced on citizenry by the military.
“There was no effective
participation by the people. If we must review the constitution, there should
be legitimacy,” he declared.
Olurode said that the review must
encourage autonomy in the nation’s education sector, maintaining that “The
constitution should be reviewed to give states the power to control their own
resources and decide how many universities they can manage. The autonomy given
to the education sector should be a constitutional matter. I don’t think Nigeria allocates up to 13 per
cent of its revenue to education.”
However, he further said, countries
such as Ghana allocates up to 31 per cent to education, arguing that there
should be a constitutional backup whereby 30 per cent of the revenue generated
by each state is channeled into the education sector.
“This is the only way we can revive
the sector. We should realise that the development of a nation is linked to the
education sector,” he asserted.
In a related development, the
management of the University of Abuja, Tuesday, November 20 shut down the
institution following students’ protest.
The protesting students reportedly
disrupted the second semester examination that was already underway and blocked
the Abuja – Gwagwalada road and the main entrance to the University campus
causing huge traffic congestion.
Soldiers and policemen were drafted
to restore law and order in the University at the time of filing in this
report.
Some of the protesters said the
problem started when students of the Faculty of Engineering protested the
inability of the school authority to produce a time table for their examination
when students in other faculties had already started theirs, for alleged
non-accreditation of the Faculty of Engineering.
Mary Onyeure
... Making SENSE of digital revolution!
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