Paul Obi in Abuja
The federal government has shut down the Lakwanjang College of Education and Entrepreneurship, Kaltungo, Gombe State, alleged to have been operating illegally in the state for over two years.
National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), Executive Secretary, Prof. Monday Joshua, who led a crack team from the NCCE Headquarters, Abuja to raid the institution, said the college was operating from a ramshackle primary school in Gombe State.
He told journalists that information got to the management of the commission that an institution existed in Kaltungo, running Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) illegally and had advertised for and admitted unsuspecting students for two academic sessions without any involvement of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB). Joshua said: “The attention of NCCE had earlier been drawn to unconfirmed information that an institution existed in Kaltungo, illegally running NCE programme. The management of NCCE consequently put up a team to investigate the institution based on the information obtained.
“On Friday, January 22, 2016, the team from NCCE led by the Executive Secretary of the Commission, including Heads of Academic programmes Department and other Senior staff of the Commission, visited the College on facts finding.
“The college has operated illegally, purportedly training NCE teachers for the past two academic sessions, without recourse to the extant laws that should cover its establishment and operation.
“The said Lakwanjang College of Education and Entrepreneurship, Kaltungo, is hereby closed down with immediate effect. The students and parents of the said college and the general public are to note that the NCE programmes purportedly run in the College have never been accredited and the College had never obtained approval to run the programmes.
“Any certificates that will arise from such illegal programmes will not be recognised in Nigeria. This action is taken based on the mandate of NCCE, and also to save teacher education in Nigeria from further ridicule.”
NCCE Public Relations Officer, Mallam Garba Suleiman, said the team from NCCE to close down the illegal College of Education was miffed to gather from the students that the college conducts classes only in the evenings in the premises of a primary school at the Nasarawa area of Kaltungo town.
It was further learnt that the college claimed through advertisement that it offers NCE programmes in Primary Education Studies, Biology, Islamic Religion studies, Christian Religion Studies, Hausa Language, Mathematics, Computer studies, Business Education, Economics, Social Studies, Arabic Medium and NCE in English.
The NCCE went ahead to order the immediate shutdown of the college for alleged breach of the laws for the establishment of Colleges of Education in Nigeria as contained in the Act establishing the commission.
curled from Thisday Newspaper
