Ben Ezechime, Enugu
A university lecturer, Prof. Okey Ikeanyibe, has said that failure of many social policy programmes of various administrations was due to lack of expertise by people handling it.
Ikeanyibe, who is a Professor of Administration and Policy at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), said this at the unveiling of a new Institute of Social Policy Studies, UNN.
“Though everybody thought it to be an all comers affair but there is expertise and that is why you see many government social policies fail.
“For example, a lot of poverty alleviation policies in the country are being implemented by politicians which is not supposed to be so.
“There is eligibility and processes of doing all these things,” he said.
The professor, who is also the director of the institute, said UNN was collaborating with United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) to make the institute stand the test of time.
According to him, the partnership started in 2018 when the issue of social policy studies came up for discussion.
“In 2018, the issue of social policy came up and we invited many universities in the country and later it was discovered that only UNN was doing social policy at the undergraduate level.
“When this was discovered other universities were invited and at the end it was only the University of Nigeria that picked it up to develop programmes with UNICEF.
“First for Post Graduate Diploma, Master’s, Professional Master’s in social policy and Master’s programme in social policy.
Ikeanyibe said that the social policy studies took off in the department of local government and administration of the university.
“However, due to distractions and all that we saw, the programme was not receiving the attention it required.
“The university then resolved to establish an institute to have a focused attention for the social policy studies,” the don said.
Speaking, Dr Olusoji Akinleye, the officer in-charge of UNICEF in Enugu State, said the partnership with UNN came as a result of collaboration that UNICEF had with the university.
“This collaboration started in 2018, and basically the collaboration was geared towards having academic programmes to promote the study of social policy in the institution,” he said.
He said that UNICEF has been involved in establishment of the institute by building capacity, giving logistics support, brainstorming, conceptualisation, approaching the NUC and financial support.
According to him the support and collaboration was an ongoing journey.
Akinleye added that UNICEF would continue to support the institute in actualising its dream in whatever way it can.
