By Amaechi Okwara
Asaba
Delta state governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, has called for a review of the curricular of tertiary institutions and place emphasis on skill acquisition and entrepreneurial leadership development to drive the economic diversification of the country.
Okowa. who made the call during the 10th convocation of the Delta State University, Abraka (DELSU) , said that tertiary institutions should focus on raising entrepreneurs, wealth creators and change agents in the society who would drive the much needed economic diversification.
According to him, “there is the need for a painstaking review of the curricular of our tertiary institutions with strong emphasis on skill acquisition, not certificate acquisition, and leadership development as against rote learning. A situation where billions of naira is spent by companies and government in retraining graduates from our universities is no longer acceptable”.
He charged universities to carry out researches on the myriad of problems besetting the society for sustainable national growth, stating that since government alone could not fund education, tertiary institutions should establish endowment funds to boost researches.
Okowa also charged tertiary institutions, in the state, not to depend wholly on government funding, but intensify their internal revenue generation, warning that “all internal generated revenues must be properly budgeted and accounted for as it is unrealistic and unacceptable under the new policy thrust of this administration for institutions to generate billions of naira in internal revenue and still expect government to fund all their expectation”.
In a welcome address, the vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Victor Peretomode, stated that the graduands of the 2014/15 session were made up of 47 Ph.D, 431 Master degree, 243 Post-graduate diploma, 5811 Bachelor degree and 485 diplomas.
He observed that the school ranked 60th among universities in Africa and the 20th in the country and that the institution had accredited most of its courses, but for Engineering and Law.
