By Isma’il Adamu

 Anyone that has closely followed developments at the Federal College of Education (FCE), Katsina, will not be surprised that the institution was ranked second among federal Colleges of Education in the country by the ICPC in the agency’s Ethics and Integrity Compliance ranking which was released in October 2023 and published on some National dailies.

For FCE Katsina, the last seven years have been a period of remarkable transformation in all aspects which include staff welfare, students well-being, infrastructure, academic programmes, and all areas of administration, finance and academic excellence.

Appointing Dr. Aliyu Idris Funtua, who has been a staff of the institution for all his working years, as the institution’s Acting Provost in 2016 and his subsequent confirmation as substantive Provost has turned out to be the best the thing that had happened to the institution in its over 40 years of existence.

When he took over as Acting Provost in 2016, he met a heap of challenges in all these areas particularly dilapidated infrastructure, unimplemented staff promotions and several other outstanding entitlements, shortage of classrooms, laboratories, student hostels, lecture halls, water and electricity for the classrooms, offices, streets and hotels, low finances and liabilities to the tune of hundreds of millions, and an unrealistic income base to settle these liabilities and other sundry needs of the institution.

For instance, the overhead given to the institution was just N1.5 million while the monthly electricity bill  was N3 million which means the overhead could not even settle the energy requirements of the institution, besides water and other daily expenses that were necessary to keep academic and administrative activities at the college moving.

Dr. Funtua also inherited a number of uncompleted projects that include those by TETFUND and others initiated by the university management, though the funds for the completion of the projects were not forthcoming and the revenue base of the institution was abysmally low and could not put even foot its basic needs let alone to shoulder capital projects. This is besides the fact that it was not possible to run academic activities with facilities that were meant for 1,000 students in 1976 while the student population had grown to 20,000 at present.

Six years down the line, from 2022 to date, all those problems are now history as all staff had been paid their entitlements and the prioritization of staff welfare has be institutionalized at the college while all the uncompleted projects inherited as at 2016 have been completed after Dr. Funtua followed up on them with TETFUND, the Budget Office and other relevant bureaus. He has also constructed a complex comprising several laboratories with each of the science departments having two standard laboratories, one for NCE and one for degree programme. He as well constructed three lecture theaters of 500 students capacity each, for education and technical education respectively.

Dr. Aliyu Idris Funtua also provided CBTs to ease the computation of results and to generate revenue for the institution when used for JAMB examinations and other computer programs. He also constructed another 320 student capacity theatre for the School of Languages and renovated and upgraded the school’s library, constructed befitting  staff offices for the staffers of the departments of Arts and Social Sciences, placed 200 solar powered street lights to make movement within the institution convenient at night, gave a facelift to the college with the construction of road networks and landscapes there by beautifying the environment, built a modern hostel accommodation to save students from renting uncomfortable places in the surrounding villages or at areas that are distant from the college. These projects have gone a long way in enhancing the teaching and learning environment at the institution.

Moreover, a key milestone achieved by the Dr. Funtua-led management of FCE Katsina is the affiliation with Bayero University, Kano, now almost all the science departments at the college run degree programmes, as the infrastructure development that include the provision of laboratories made it easy to get accreditation for those degree programmes.

Funtua also observed that most reputable tertiary institutions in the country run consultancy services which help them generate revenue to fund their activities, he therefore introduced NCE part-time programmes, a Professional Diploma in Education and an ICT part-time program which is run at the computer department of the institution as well as a Demonstration Secondary School which is now one of the best secondary schools in the state.

The institution also took over the consultancy services section which was run by private companies. These programs as well as the Demonstration Secondary School and the consultancy services now serve as the main source of revenue for the for FCE Katsina, helping the institution to become buoyant enough to shoulder the financial burdens of running its day-to-day activities.

These achievements coupled with the administrative and financial management records at FCE Katsina within the period have adequately qualified the institution for the high ranking by the ICPC in its latest Ethics and Integrity Compliance evaluation which measures three key performance indicators, namely management culture and structure, financial management system, and administrative system.