By Baba Shehu Oscu, Bauchi
Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has directed the Ministry of Education to fish out some sizeable number of best students from secondary schools across the state that government can be able to sponsor for studies at the Baze University in Abuja.
“So the ministry of education would do something with what the pro-chancellor of the Baze University, Prof. Datti Baba Ahmed brought to Bauchi, there is nothing that he will bring that I will not support for public good”, he said.
The Governor who was receiving the Baze University delegation to Bauchi on a courtesy visit, said preference should be given to qualified but economically disadvantaged students who cannot afford education cost, especially from the rural areas of the state.
Senator Bala, while noticing with delight the 75% subsidy tuition cost offered to Bauchi by the University, stressed the need for the state to make Baze its special university where state students can get the best from its high quality and standard education, saying however that students’ selection should not be arbitrary.
The Governor, who observed that the world is today at rat race and best thing one can take to compete is the global best practice, and the therefore congratulated the university’s proprietor for what he has been doing in the institution to meet the needs of people generally.
He commended the institution proprietor for giving it a global outlook bringing people from various parts of the world while in Nigeria people from the south, central, north, and so forth were crafted, describing it as a spirit of universality which is all about knowledge.
The governor also hailed the Bauchi state commissioner of education, Dr. Aliyu Usman Tilde for the knowledge based initiative he brought to the education sector in the state, saying “Today we can monitor and evaluate school attendance of both students and teachers”.
Bala added, “Even our food chains supply we can monitor real time and we reduce wastages in procurement and even in salaries just because of the integrity of Tilde, he is the key and that what distinguished Senator Datti Ahmed has done at the Baze University”.
Speaking earlier, the proprietor and pro-chancellor of the Baze University, Prof. Datti Baba Ahmed expressed dismay that authorities are today finding it difficult to afford education for their citizens, describing the situation as not only unfortunate and real danger to our societies.
According to him, Baze has never been about quantity, it had always been about quality, stressing “If we had wanted to fill the university, we could have filled it by now, it is the only private varsity in Nigeria that you find staff and students from every state of the federation.
“Baze is the only University in Nigeria where you will find from the board what we called national character, it’s still the only university in Nigeria where the proprietor, the founder the pro-chancellor cannot influence admission and that is how we protected our quality.
Datti told the governor that Baze has established things that no varsity in Nigeria has come close to meeting, with its exams system biometrics having finger-prints and so forth, saying “No lecturer knows who he is marking, so we protect the lecturer and the student, while attendance is also biometric”.
The Pro-chancellor, also a one-time PDP presidential aspirant recalled that during the COVID-19 lockdown, Baze varsity is the only University that immediately changed to real online teaching, contenting “As at October 2019, Baze has had 30 out of 31 students who graduated to study in the United Kingdom with distinction”.
He cited example with one of such brilliant students with an indigene of Bauchi state, Amina Shehu Misau who got 2:1 in IT at the Baze, and equally got a distinction in Helford University, now preparing to go back for her PhD to buttress his claims.
Datti posited: “Nigerian citizens deserve quality education, I have always maintained that if quality education is not of the right quality, it can be dangerous. Medical doctors will kill, engineers will kill, bankers, so on and so forth, hence we must heighten and must retain quality education in Nigeria”.
