Imo College of Health, Amaigbo: Achievements and Success Stories

By Stanley Edozie, Owerri

The Imo state College of Health and Management Sciences, Amaigbo, Nwangele local government area has over the years recorded notable landmark but silent achievements which has caused a large number of people to have written off the college as well as its management.

In the course of this piece and expectations of the general public, I will like to dwell on the Accreditation of lost departments, Digital upgrading, Transparency and Accountability, Capacity building as well as Building of classroom blocks among others.

To start with, the Accreditation of new and old courses at the college is one of the stories that cannot be swept under the carpet. By 2016 when Dr Canice Chuma Duru took over the mantle of leadership of the College as the Provost, the College had lost accreditation and barred from admitting Students into four
Departments for the previous 2 years.

The four departments affected were the Community Health Department for Community Health Extension Workers (CHEW); the Diploma and Junior Community Health Extension Workers (JCHEW) programmes; the Medical Laboratory Department for Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT) and Medical Laboratory Assistant (MLA) programmes.

Others include Environmental Health Department for Environmental Health Technology (EHT) and
Environmental Health Technician (EVT) and West African Health Examination
Board (WAHED) programmes as well as Another Department, Pharmacy Department was just due for reaccreditation. This means that 66.7% of the entire programmes ran in the College had problems of accreditation. From October 2016 to about the first half of 2017, Dr Duru invited the various regulatory Boards of these professions and the following Boards restored accreditation of the
programmes:
COMMUNITY HEALTH PRACTITIONERS REGISTRATION BOARD, MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE COUNCIL OF NIGERIA
ENVIROMENTAL HEALTH OFFICERS REGISTRATION COUNCIL OF NIGERIA.
Also The PHARMACY COUNCIL OF NIGERIA came and reaccredited the Pharmacy
Technician programme.

The accreditation for WEST AFRICAN HEALTH EXAMIBATION BOARD was restored recently this year-2019, after tortuous and protracted accreditation exercise that lasted for more than one year due to the extent of deterioration the department suffered. Students of Environmental Health Department were able to sit for WAHEB professional examination for the first time in almost 6 years in this College. This was only possible by the resilience and hard fighting spirit of the current administration of the College.

Secondly, Dr Chuma Duru administration has upgraded the institution to the extent that application forms for
admission into our College is now done online. Prospective students now purchase and complete
the admission forms from any part of the world without travelling the distance by simply logging
in to www.imcohams-edu.net. Lecturers upload students results online and students access their
results online. Many administrative processes of the College are now done online, thus reducing
administrative bottlenecks.

Basically, on assumption of office, Dr. Duru changed the ugly narrative of extortion recorded to have been very rampant in the College as in many other institutions in the Country by making the college a cashless institution. This means that only genuine cash transactions are allowed and are done through the bank only. This has reduced corruption in
the Health College as well as reduced frustration on students and parents.

On capacity building, Dr Duru’s administration introduced a compulsory capacity building exercise in the form of Staff
development exercise every semester and this has greatly improved the quality of the teaching and
non-teaching staff and thus has improved the quality of the students that graduate from the
institution. This has helped to produce competent middle level healthcare professionals for Imo
citizens.

Furthermore, the health college has five new classroom blocks and two offices despite the lean resources to complement the inadequate lecture rooms and offices before 2016. The building has passed the roofing
stage.

Having regained all the accreditation lost due to the previous merging with College of Nursing by
the immediate past State Government, the management of the institution are currently in dialogue with the National Board for
Technical Education (NBTE) for the accreditation of more programmes to the HND level. The
departments involved include Health Information Management, Environmental Health
Technology and Nutrition and Dietetics. Furthermore, the name of the Institution, ‘College of Health and Management Sciences’ has
offered the opportunity to expand the scope of the institution to Polytechnic status thus reflecting
the visions and aspirations of the founding fathers of the institution.

A study was conducted by
educated sons of Amaigbo among whom was Professor Walter Ofonagoro on the feasibility or
otherwise of expanding the College. Their findings vehemently supported the expansion as was
the case with College of Health Aba and other similar institutions in Nigeria. This expansion will
aid the development of the host community and help the State to reduce the number of youths
that fail to secure admission every academic session. Courses such as Computer Science, Public Administration, Management sciences, Industrial
Safety Management, Science Laboratory Technology and many skills Acquisition programmes are the targets for the expansion.

These are what is needed by the college to get fully accredited with NBTE in order to qualify for TETFUND
intervention which develops tertiary institutions in Nigeria and reduce the burden of funding on
Imo State Government as the present status does not qualify it for TETFUND and that is why the college
is handicapped and seriously challenged by physical structures.

The Monotechnic status left the institution with very limited number of students as the professional bodies strictly regulate the number of
students admitted yearly.

…News Corner.