Rev. Israel Akanji, the President of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, has said tertiary schools run by churches may not become cheaper in spite of the rising cost of management and administration in the economy.
The reverend who was in Ibadan, Oyo State, for a three-day youth convention made this revelation while responding to a question from Daily Trust at a press conference held at the Baptist Convention Headquarters, Oke Bola, Ibadan.
Citing government’s criteria that private tertiary institutions would only be allowed to operate when they are able to meet up or surpass the standards of their public counterparts, he noted that there was no way that the tuition fees would be lower.
He said, “For the first few years of starting the Bowen University, the church was responsible for everything, the church had the land, the Baptist Convention provided the buildings and we started paying the VCs and teachers ourselves. So, we put in a lot when it comes to the schools and all. However, we have discovered that unless we want to water down the quality of education, students must pay to a particular level.
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“Imagine that we are training quacks for our hospitals, what would they do? They would just be slaughtering people outside. Therefore, our quality must be high. If the quality must be high, we must have very high consultant specialists that would be teaching them. These consultants are not easy to come by because if you offer him one million naira, he would be called from Dubai or Qatar to provide the same service and collect 10 million.
“So, in order for us to meet up with the standards, we can’t afford to make it cheaper than it is. The church has it in mind to make it cheaper but things cannot work out that way, even though we keep pumping money from the church.”
He encouraged the government to engage the youths in policymaking and execution to encourage them to be more open to contribute to government’s programmes and development agenda.
