Former Governor of Cross River, Sen. Liyel Imoke before leaving office, in his bid to establish a world class institution established the Institute of Technology and Management, Ugep as a replica of Highbury College, Portsmouth and the institution kickstarted with about 7 courses.
Under Former Gov. Liyel Imoke, the school was managed by Highbury college, Portsmouth Opening Access to graduates of the school to forward their education to UK and top institutions in other countries in Europe but Gov. Ayade upon assumption of office terminated their contract and since then, different persons have been appointed with very short life span in office and currently the school is being managed by a ghost company called UK School Company with staff that have little or no experience or pedigree in school management let alone technical education thereby, adding little or no value to the institution.
The school under Liyel Imoke got about N48 million as subvention monthly but Gov. Ayade reduced it to N22 Million, with the UK Company taking N7 million leaving the school with N15Million monthly. The school has a wage bill of about N13million leaving it wih less than N2 million for over head cost.
Out of 11 courses currently running in the institution, only 2 courses have partial accreditation, the implication of this is that, graduating students from the institution are carrying almost useless certificates which is why about 80% of the graduants haven’t been able to gain direct entry admission into other universities to further their education, neither can they get good jobs with the certificates.
My source stated categorically that the school management over the years has tried everything humanly possible to get the governor to release funds for the institution to equip its faculties to avail them the opportunity to meet up with the accreditation requirements but the governor has been adamant. The lack of proper accreditation of the school’s program has kept admission into to school at less than 200 students per session. When Ayade’s education commissioner visited the institution sometime ago, he stated that the situation of the school was worthy of being declared a state of emergency.
When President Buhari approved the establishment of the Federal Polytechnic, Yakurr, the governor was approached to approve the comversion of IMT to the Polytechnic but refused, his interest in the school is still unknown but clearly not genuine.
The ITM Ugep is now a shadow of itself as the environment is as bushy as a mini forest, students are scared of what the future holds for them with the certificate and the admission rate has dropped drastically.
While Gov. Ayade struggles to leave a legacy in the state, he should as well focus his energy in sustaining legacies that he met.
By Daniel Riwo
