If the recommendations are accepted as promised by the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin, some of the state-owned post-secondary schools would have a new focus from the next school year. Some will lose their current status and some courses while school heads may have to submit to more rigorous monitoring by the ministry.

For instance, the committee, headed by Prof Shehu Jimoh, a renowned educationist with the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), recommended that the College of Education (Technical), Lafiagi, should stop one of its programmes because it does not have enough hands to handle even its regular courses and was using secondary school teachers to augment the shortage.

"They have about 40 academic staff that can barely tackle regular programmes. But we found out that it is organising sandwich programmes", he said, adding: "They said they run it with the help of part-time teachers form Ilorin and the secondary schools in town."

But the stoppage may only work if the committee’s call on the state government to seek federal assistance in converting the College to a Federal College of Education with specialty in Technical Education and Agricultural Education fails.

"Kwara State must be one of the few states that do not have a Federal College of Education (FCE), if indeed there is any other", Jimoh said while submitting the report to Adedoyin.

Apart from seeking a federal college, the committee also recommended the conversion of the College of Education, Oro, in Irepodun Local Government Area into a state university. If accepted, it replaces the earlier failed conversion of the Kwara State Polytechnic (KWARAPOLY) into a University of Technology by the previous administration of the late Alhaji Mohammed Lawal.

Jimoh said his committee was not unaware of the fact that the College of Education, Ilorin, with over 20 doctorate degree holders on its staff and about 100 others parading Masters degrees in relevant fields, was most suited for conversion. He said with the state capital playing host to three of the state-owned institutions and a federal university, it was politically expedient and geographically sound that the state university should be at Oro while Ilorin should continue to run its NCE programmes.

Ilorin would however have to cede its Technical and Agricultural Education College to Lafiagi even if the Federal Government refuses to take over the school.

Said Jimoh: "If the Federal Government is not willing or ready to take over one of the colleges of Education and the state government does not convert one of them to a university as proposed, the three institutions can continue to run as NCE colleges, but with their programmes streamlined and rationalised as spelt out in Chapter 3 of this report.

KWARAPOLY, the committee said, should also be allowed to continue to run its ND and HND programmes but cease to offer courses in legal studies which should now form the focus of the College of Arabic and Islamic Legal Studies (CAILS), Ilorin. Besides, it recommended that the School of Basic Studies should be excised from the polytechnic to form a separate College of Basic Studies to be located elsewhere in the state.

For CAILS, the committee said: "It has nothing in common with either the colleges of Education or the polytechnic, either in its operations or its affiliation and accreditation arrangements. We note that the college and some nine similar others in the northern part pf the country have started arrangements to get the Federal Government to establish a national commission to coordinate their activities. We consider this a step in the right direction although recent pronouncements credited to the relevant federal authorities do not indicate a move in that direction.

"We are therefore suggesting that until such commission is set up, the CAILS should continue to run its present programmes, with the exception of Mathematics and Mass Communication (the latter of which should now move to the polytechnic). If the college is truly producing teachers, it should strengthen the Education Unit and upgrade its programmes and increase the duration to three years to bring them level with NCE standard, which is, the minimum required for entry into the teaching profession. The College can still continue with the two-year Diploma in Library Science and Legal Studies. We recommend also that the name is changed to College of Arabic and Legal Studies to accommodate the Common Law programme."

Based on the multiplier effect of standard at all levels of the educational system, the committee also recommended that the state should establish Schools of Science in all the three senatorial districts in the state as well as revive its Technical Schools, the latter both for skill acquisition as well as providing enrolment materials for the College of Education, (Technical), Lafiagi. For the schools of Science, the committee said the recommendation had become imperative of the state was ever to meet the 70:30 ratio of science to humanities in students enrolment at the tertiary level.