A fresh crisis looms as the state governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, has
converted the four tertiary institutions in the state to vocational institutions
and tutorial centres, as part of his administration’s restructuring policy.
The affected institutions, namely Osun State College of Technology, Esa-Oke;
Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, Osun State College of Education, Ilesa and Osun
State College of Education, Ila-orangun have been ordered not to admit
students for the 2015/2016 academic session.
In the same vein, applicants into the four institutions have been prevented
from writing the post-UTME examination which they had already paid for.
However, the state deputy governor, Mrs Titi Laoye Tomori, declared that the
state government would not merge the institutions, but might not admit
students in the next academic session, saying that “What we are doing is
restructuring.”
Following the controversial decision, 14 lecturers of the Osun State College
of Technology, Esa-Oke, were allegedly arrested by the State Department of
Security Services (DSS) over their condemnation of the new government
policy and removal of the provost of the institution over his initiation of
admission processes for the 2015/2016 academic session of the institution.
The lecturers were reportedly taken to Osogbo, the state capital, for
interrogation, after being accused of threatening the life of one of the
institution’s top shots and sabotaging the government’s policy.
Sources disclosed that the provost of the state College of Education, Ila-
Orangun, Dr .O Gbadamosi, was allegedly sacked by the governor for flouting
the order restraining the institutions from going ahead with the admission
process, while a professor was brought from Lagos to take over the mantle of
leadership of the college.
Dr Gbadamosi, Sunday Tribune learnt, had conducted the post-UTME
examination for about 4,000 applicants for the National Certificate in
Education (NCE) programme in October and later sent the list of the
successful candidates to the JAMB office in Abuja.
Sunday Tribune gathered that about 10, 000 candidates applied to the Osun
State Polytechnic, Iree and the Osun State College of Technology, Esa-Oke for
various courses, but the management of the institutions could not proceed on
the admission for fear of being sanctioned by the state government.
The governor, Sunday Tribune learnt, had invited the chairmen and chief
executives of the four tertiary institutions to a meeting where he briefed them
on his plans to proscribe National Diploma and Higher National Diploma
programmes in the polytechnics and colleges of education.
Governor Aregbesola was said to have mandated the institutions to embark
on remedial and tutorial programmes for secondary school students who could
not pass their ordinary school certificates, IJMB, Cambridge Advance Studies
and UTME, while mandating the four institutions to venture into vocational
courses like bricklaying, carpentry, hair dressing, electrical installation, air
conditioning and refrigeration, shoe making, soap making and production of
disinfectants, which would earn the artisans a three- month certificate course
or a year diploma programme. The intention is to reduce the four institutions
to two by merging Osun State Polytechnic Iree with the State College of
Technology, Esa-Oke and Osun State college of Education Ila Orangun with the
Ilesa campus, which would reduce the management staff and governing
councils.
The development, which had forced the institutions to be advertising the
vocational education and remedial programmes on various broadcasting
stations in the state, had generated ripples within the host communities, as
monarchs and community leaders had paid courtesy visits to the governor to
rescind his decision, but to no avail.
The chairmen of the two polytechnics, Mrs Olu Maduka and Professor
Fagbenle had vowed to turn in their resignation letters if the governor insisted
on proscription of admission for all categories of students in the schools,
saying the policy could tarnish their image.
Meanwhile, a group, Concerned Parents of Applicants into the institutions,
has indicated its plan to sue the State government and authorities of the
Institutions for what it described as “fraudulent acts of the institutions to sell
POST UTME and NCE and HND forms to the applicants without offering them
the admission, while those who also went through the preliminary programmes
in the 2014/2015 session may not also be allowed to proceed to the regular
course.
A parent who spoke with Sunday Tribune said: “The state government ought
to have written JAMB since two years ago to remove its institutions from the
brochure. By this, our wards wouldn’t have chosen the institutions. At the
appropriate time, we shall take them to the court.”

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