Friday, December 20, 2013

Nigerian Students Study in One-block, Portakabin Ghanaian Universities.

According to punch
**receives lectures in uncompleted buildings, one-block apartments to two-storey structures.

**other study inside containers, as against what we hear in Nigeria.
**school fees including fees accommodation (excluding feeding) which range between $6,000 and $8,000 (N1,300,000) per session.
Sequel to the irregular academic calendar and alleged inadequate facilities, Nigerian parents send their children overseas for tertiary education. The idea is that these schools have state-of-the-art amenities and their graduates are world-class.
However, the condition in some of the Universities is like 'jumping from frying pan to fire'.


Welcome to Accra Institute of Technology, a one-block Ghanaian tertiary institution offering first degrees as well as post-graduate degrees up to the doctoral level.

AIT, which prides itself as being modelled after internationally-recognised institutes of technology such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology, both in the United States of America, occupies an uncompleted, rented one-block building on the premises of the Civil Service Training Centre of the Ghanaian government.


The institute, with a university status as certified by the National Accreditation Board, which is an agency of Ghanaian Ministry of Education, is boxed in the far end of the compound which also houses Ghana’s Government Secretarial School, as well as a Learning and Development Centre. AIT pays its rent to the Ghanaian government.

Interestingly, over 60 per cent of the students in this institution are Nigerians. Out of an estimated 2,000 students pursuing various degree programmes, the institution’s registrar, Mr. Dominic Osei-Boakye, who spoke with our correspondent in his three-by-four-feet cubicle office, says over 1,200 of its student population are Nigerians. He adds that 15 per cent of the students are from Francophone African countries, while the remaining 25 per cent are Ghanaians.
Shameful Facilities::
To accommodate students for the purpose of lectures and other academic activities, the AIT authorities have had to construct fabricated metal containers instead of properly built lecture rooms. In fact, when our correspondent visited the school, some students were seen studying on the deck of the structure housing the institution.



Investigation shows that most of these foreign students have either been denied admission into the universities back at home or — in the case of Nigerians — the majority are those that have been frustrated by the incessant strikes usually embarked upon by members of the Academic Staff of Union of Universities. And, as usual with foreign students in overseas institutions, they pay in American dollars.


At the AIT, the school fees range between $1,300 and $1,510 per semester, excluding feeding, accommodation and procurement of academic materials.
Sources at the Nigerian High Commission in Ghana told our correspondent that the Nigerian High Commissioner to the country, Amb. Ademola Onafowokan, was utterly disappointed during his visit to AIT when he had to address Nigerian students in their hundreds under a tree.


One of the sources who confided in this correspondent said Onafowokan had chosen the school for the visitation owing to the sheer number of Nigerian students reported to be studying there.


“The situation whereby Nigerians flood universities that can best be described as mushroom institutions of learning is very pathetic and worrisome. His Excellency, the Nigerian High Commissioner to Ghana, Amb. Ademola Onafowokan, had his fair share of this experience during his tour of universities with significant number of Nigerian population.


“At AIT, which is a one-block institution, he (Onafowokan) addressed the students under a tree. You can go there and see things for yourself and witness, first-hand, the environment and the condition in which our compatriots learn,” a top diplomat in the High Commission who craved anonymity laments.


Study Centres, Shallow Standards::
Duly registered tertiary institutions of learning in the standing of AIT, with no clear-cut standard infrastructure and basic facilities, are scattered across the length and breadth of Ghana. Apart from AIT, other institutions operating from a one-block structure includes the Sikkim Manipal University, Accra campus; Radford University College, Accra; and Mahatma Gandhi University, Accra campus.



While Sikkim Manipal University is operated by KnowledgeWorkz Limited, the supposed “authorised learning centre” for the Accra and Kumsai campuses, Paramount Academy for Career Excellence boasts being the “authorised study centre” for the Mahatma Gandhi University in Ghana.


The rigorous procedure of gaining admission into Nigerian universities, especially the publicly-owned ivory towers, hardly applies here; and this has made these so-called affiliate institutions attractive to many Nigerian students and their parents.

Investigations reveal that the processes involved in securing admission into these quasi universities are rather too easy for comfort, because they only require the candidate to have a good Senior School Certificate Examination result. This is in sharp contrast to Nigeria where, in addition to scoring at least six credits in the SSCE, candidates are also required to write and pass the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination as well as the Post-UTME of their individual institutions of choice.
High Fees::
As stated earlier, Nigerian candidates seeking a spot in Ghanaian government-owned universities are not only required to have very good grades in their Senior School Certificate Examinations, as international students, they also pay very high tuition fees, compared to domestic students.



The university fees are higher than those charged by the study centres, and they include fees for accommodation (excluding feeding) which range between $6,000 and $8,000 per session.


Foreign students studying medicine pay more, as their tuition is sometimes as much as $18,000 (N1.3million) per academic session. Again, excluding feeding and other incidentals.

Scandalous Structures::
From uncompleted buildings, one-block apartments to two-storey structures, many of the accredited private universities in Ghana appear to be mere money-making ventures for their owners. 
More worrisome is the fact that in many of the universities visited by our correspondent, Nigerians form the bulk of their student population, while they also top the nationality of guests at their admissions offices.

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