Covenant University VC: Many Nigerian varsities not empowering students

Akan Williams, the acting vice-chancellor of Covenant University (CU), says there is a need to review the role of universities in the country as many of them are currently not empowering students.

The professor, who was recently appointed by the institution’s board of regents, told NAN on Wednesday that universities must be equipped to better empower students towards driving societal development.

He lamented that many varsities had yet to tailor their activities towards adequate empowerment of their students.

“What is happening to our universities of technology? Are we really empowering students there? We have universities of agriculture. What are they producing?” Williams asked.

“We now have accounting students, mechanical engineering students and a host of others in such universities, which should really not be.

“These universities are supposed to be specialised institutions of higher learning, where the focus should be technology or agriculture and things around them.

“Lack of focus is largely part of the reasons things are not going the way they should in this country. Doing everything at the same time cannot work that way.”

Williams also noted that empowering students with skills would require more programme-specific institutions.

“In this university, we are going to be identifying skills for particular programmes, such as accounting and economics, and find out the skill sets expected of graduates of these programmes.

“The purpose is for students to be able to get these skill sets so that by the time they get out of here, they are empowered with various skills. It is not about just having certificates. It is for us to drive the system.”

In August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that the number of unemployed Nigerians rose from 20.93 in 2018 to 21.76 million in the second quarter of 2020.