YABATECH ready for accreditation, says Rector

Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) Rector, Mr Femi Omokungbe, has said the institution was preparing hard its upcoming accreditation exercise next month.

In an interview with journalists after the institution’s matriculation for the 2018/2019 academic session last week, Omokungbe, an engineer, said the accreditation exercise to be carried out by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), would cut across all of the college’s 48 departments.

He said this was so because past workers’ strikes had caused the exercises to be postponed.

The Rector said: “Forty per cent of programmes that were to be re-accredited two years ago were not done due to strike. When I came in (last year), it was about two months to the reaccreditation exercise and I looked round and saw that I needed to put some things in place. So I requested for an extension to about February this year. But because of the strike of the union that spanned for two- three months, we had to take that into consideration. That is why it is coming up late June early July.”

To fund the accreditation exercise, Omokungbe said the College was depending on grants from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and others.

“In terms of equipment it is going to cost us a lot. And we are looking up to TETFund to assist. The good thing to the advantage of the college is that the college has not accessed the 2015/16 intervention. We are merging the 2015/16/17/and 18 intervention funds. And I feel that that is a kind of blessing to us. And in terms of equipment that we know is going to cost us a lot we have said the Council should give us approval so we can augment what we get from TETFund,” he said.

During the exercise, the Rector said the college would be seeking approval for new programmes like Petroleum Engineering and Leisure and Tourism.

A total of 18,131 students were admitted for full-time and part-time programmes for the 2018/2019 academic session.

In his speech at the matriculation ground, Omokungbe said 10,440 of the students registered for National Diploma (ND), while 7,670 were for Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes.

He counseled the students to be focused and shun anti-social behavior. He also urged them to make good use of facilities provided for their use.

“The College Management has within available resources, ensured that students have conducive environment for learning and living. Efforts have been made to renovate the hostels and generally provide a clean and safe environment for students in Yaba campus while work is still ongoing at the Epe Campus. Students are therefore advised to take advantage of the facilities provided and ensure proper use of these facilities in the hostels, classrooms, libraries, and the medical centre,” he said.

In an interview, a new student, Oladapo Ayokunle, said life on campus had been stressful since he was admitted in February because he had no accommodation despite paying for a bedspace in the hostel.

“Since February, it has stressful because we paid for accommodation but we have not been given hostel. The hostels have not been allocated so they are still empty. We were told that they would be allocated after the matriculation.

When asked how he coped since then, the Banking and Finance student who lives in Abeokuta said: “Sometimes we sleep in the classroom; sometimes we sleep in the chapel. They said after matriculation they will allocate the hostels.”