Why impact investors in education must prioritise standards – Afe Babalola

Chief Afe Babalola, the founder of the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, has said investors in the education sector should not focus on immediate gains, but standards with state-of-the-art equipment and credible, selfless, and honest administrators and personnel.

Babalola, who said investment in education was expensive, advised investors to prioritise the establishment of world-class institutions by adopting modern curricula that would attract international students.

A statement by the Head, ABUAD Corporate Affairs, Tunde Olofintila, in Ado Ekiti on Thursday, titled, ‘Afe Babalola University to mentor Azman varsity,’ stated that Babalola spoke while receiving a 12-man team of the two-year-old Amzan University, Kano, who had come to ABUAD for mentorship.

The ABUAD founder told the team led by the Chairman of the Implementation Committee, Prof. Kabiru Dandago, to impress it upon the founder, Alhaji Abdulmanasaf Sarina, that education was “a very expensive venture from which he should not expect any immediate returns on investment.”

Babalola advised that to succeed, “Sarina must be personally interested in the day-to-day running of the university while he should look for credible, selfless and honest vice-chancellor and pro-chancellor to pilot the affairs of the university for him.

“If you want to be an internationally recognised university, you must have students and lecturers from other countries and modern curricula that will attract international students.”

He said Azman University’s decision to adopt ABUAD as a mentor was not a surprise because other universities from within and outside Nigeria had been approaching the10-year-old university for the same purpose.

Speaking earlier, Dandag lauded ABUAD for its infrastructure, faculties, serene environment, academic achievements and discipline, which he said, was no doubt the reason that the National Universities Commission directed Azman University to ABUAD for mentorship.

The committee chairman, who said ABUAD was a confirmation of Babalola’s vision, dream and selflessness, added, “We will go back home and report to our proprietor, Alhaji Sarina, and we will take it from there.

“Knowing the kind of person that he is, particularly when he has said he does not want to establish just a university, but a world-class university, we now have the words and experience of Aare Afe Babalola to lean on in achieving our own dream of a world class university.”