Delta: We’ll Make Our Colleges Of Education More Attractive For Admission Seekers –Prof Tonukari

By Daniel Dafe

Commissioner for Higher Education, Delta State, Professor Nyerhovwo Tonukari, has said that the administration of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori is committed to making Colleges of Education in the state more attractive for admission seekers.

Speaking to Oasis Magazine during an exclusive chat on Saturday in Abraka, Prof. Tonukari said his appointment as Commissioner has been a good experience, saying it has opened his eyes to happenings in the tertiary education system in the state and things needed to be done to improve the sector.

In his words, he has now realised what Delta State is putting in for education and how Deltans have embraced education.

According to him, Deltans generally like school.

Adding: “They want to go to school and every Delta child wants university or polytechnic education but only few of them subscribe to the Colleges of Education and that is where we have a little bit of challenge.”

Furthermore, he said: “Let me give you an example with DELSU. The last admission process in DELSU, about 36,000 chose DELSU. After the Post UTME, about 26,000 (twenty-six thousand) passed the exam and DELSU cannot admit that number of students based on the NUC plan which is about 7,500 that can be admitted and that is a big challenge because what about the other students or candidates that applied? Luckily for Delta State, we have four universities now so the tension is a little bit less but it is not solved,” just as he said that the state sill needs to expand these new institutions to have more faculties, departments and absolve more Deltans into school.

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He opined that based on present statistics, he does not see Deltans getting enough space for the admission of their children in the next 10 to 20 years.

He noted: “The challenge will still be there because the population is high and the institutions are not enough.”

Asked how this challenge can be solved, he said: “There are two things we are doing right now. First, I mentioned earlier that we don’t have issues with getting students into the universities and polytechnic but for the Colleges of Education, we have some challenges so we are trying to do what we call “Dual Mode” in the Colleges of education. It’s a process where we can award both NCE and degree. That way more students or candidates will subscribe for the College of Education because they can now get both NCE and degree. So, this will also help us absolve a lot of candidates.

“Secondly, we want to expand the faculties but that is going to be a project for His Excellency not necessarily myself. So, we are still on that discussion. Right now, all the higher institutions we have in the state have approximately about 400 programmes but we are going to expand them in 2024/2025 subsequently so we can have more carrying capacity for admission of new students so that Deltans will not suffer too much.”

Speaking further, he said that “a robust tertiary education is cardinal to the MORE agenda of His Excellency, Rt Hon Elder Sheriff Oborevwori’s administration.”