RSCHST holds 15th convocation, graduates 1,439

Rivers State College of Health Sciences and Technology (RSCHST) has graduated a total of 1,439 students during its 15th convocation ceremony in Port Harcourt.

Nnamdi Amadi, acting provost of the College, disclosed this in his address during the College’s convocation ceremony at the weekend, stating that the College was poised to make giant strides, achieving excellence in diverse areas, including health training and management, practical application of academic training, as well as information and communications technology (ICT) transformation to improve the operational efficiency.

Amadi informed that ICT application had made the College management to be transparent and accountable in improving academic standards.

He said the College was encouraging its students to be self-reliant upon graduation, and had introduced entrepreneurship courses that would make the students self-employed, rather than run after white-collar jobs that were hardly available these days, adding that if the students become employers of labour, it would reduce the level of the unemployment in the society.

The acting provost charged the students to see the constraints experienced in their academic pursuit as the most credible way to preparing them for the challenges ahead, and that their crown of success both in character and learning by the convocation ceremony marked the transition from one academic status to another.

He congratulated the graduands, and urged them to be good ambassadors of the College and the state at large.

While acknowledging the support the institution has received from the government of Rivers State from its inception, Amadi further pleaded with the owner-government to intervene in assisting the College overcome its major challenges that required immediate attention.

He enumerated some of the institutions challenges to include: inability to raise fund for the accreditation of its HND programmes by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), and the near-loss of three programmes already accredited, due to lack of finance to pay the necessary charges and host the NBTE officials for the full accreditation.

He narrated that there was urgent need to accredit another five programmes of the College that are currently overdue for accreditation.

He also lamented that there was high turnover of retirement at the health institution; stressing that if the current trend of the retirement age of 35 years of service and 60 years of age, whichever comes first, was not reviewed soonest among the academic staff, many state-owned institutions including RSCHST may go into extinction.

“In November 2013, the last administration approved a retirement age of 70 years for professors and 65 years for other academic staff for all tertiary institutions in the state, the same administration in 2014 withdrew the said approval, reverting the retirement age to 35 years of service and 60 years of age, whichever comes first.

“This singular act has occasioned brain drain in our institutions, where academic staff members are massively retiring, or moving to other institutions in other states where the earlier policy is in place,” Amadi stated.

Amadi said those who cannot move are in a state of delirium; adding that surprisingly, Rivers was the only state in the federation with the above mentioned service policy.

He called on the Rivers State Governor and Visitor to the College to save the situation by revisiting the policy and reinstate the earlier policy, which is what other institutions in the country are enjoying.

One of the graduating students, Ibokama Wilson-Jack, in a chat with BusinessDay, expressed joy and satisfaction on the successful completion of his programme, urging other students to always take their studies seriously, as only education could change the fortune of Nigeria for the better.

High point of the convocation ceremony was the conferment of honourary Fellowship of the College on two eminent and distinguished former heads of the College, Her Excellency, Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, the current Deputy Governor of Rivers State, and Nnanna Victor Onyekwere, pioneer Provost of the institution.