Provost decries paucity of funds, epileptic power supply

The Provost of the Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Lagos, Dr. Wahab Ademola Azeez, has identified paucity of funds as one of the major challenges facing the institution while he urged government to increase allocation to the College.

Dr. Azeez who was appointed provost of the 54-year-old College of Education in May 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari, acknowledged that he met some challenges when he assumed office, describing his two years in office as hectic.

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Presenting the scorecard of his two years in office, Azeez noted that inadequate power and water supply has also remained a big challenge facing the institution.

He explained that before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the institution’s monthly electricity bill was about N1.52 million but since the increase in tariff, the average monthly bill has been between N5 to N6 million.

“We have written to Ikeja Electricity to see how to reduce the bill because due to paucity of funds, we were unable to pay all the bills. It is the same experience; the bigger the institution, the bigger the bill.

“At night, when there is a power outage, we rely on generators. We are considering a gas power generator to reduce consumption of diesel. We are also already thinking out of the box to find an alternative to the exploitation of the private electricity distribution companies,” he said.

The provost further mentioned that the college requires expansion of its infrastructural facilities, but inadequate land mass has been a challenge. Other challenges, according to him, include inadequate hostel facilities for students, welfare for staff and students as well as inadequate national and international linkages, among others.

Azeez also expressed the dream to get the federal government upgrade the college to federal university of technical education, adding that discussion was ongoing to amend the Act establishing the college and convert it to a university of technical education to enable it to service students who are yearning for degrees in technical programmes.