TRACKING___The visitation panel of Imo state university said yesterday that the free education progra-mme ran by the Okorocha administration was a genuine scheme, saying that it was designed to deceive Imo people. The panel regretted that it ended a colossal downgrading of tertiary education in the state.
The panel wondered what else to call the free education if not ‘419’ when the government never paid the counterpart school fees it promised but instead deceived an unsuspecting public into believing that it was fulfilling its own part of the bargain.
The Chairman of the panel , Prof. Chinedu Nebo , former Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria,Enugu Campus, who made these revelations yesterday while submitting the panel’s report to governor Hope Uzodinma, also submitted that it was inconceivable that quality tertiary education could be received free.
The panel pointed out that the free education programme run by former administration was a sham that watered down the quality of education because the best brains in the profession were not attracted.
The panel noted that accreditation was denied many faculties in the Institution like Medicine and surgery for many years, pointing out that of all the abandoned projects littering the institution , the mother of them all was the Medical school
They recommended that for IMSU to produce graduates that are nationally relevant and globally competitive it must adopt the entrepreneurial model of education., among other things
.The panel also suggested a reintroduction of tuition fees which they pegged at N90,000 as against N75,00O paid in federal tertiary institutions.
