OUI convocation: 38 Graduands To Bag First Class

Thirty eight out of 992 students of the Oduduwa University, Ile-Ife will on Friday bag First Class Division at the 8th and 9th convocation of the university.

The Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Benjamin Aribisala disclosed this on Thursday during a press conference ahead of the convocation ceremony.

He stated that 381 students came out with second class upper division while 56 fell into Third Class Division.

Drawing inferences from the statistical comparison of the academic performance of the students, Prof. Aribisala concluded that there have been significant improvements in the quality of graduates produced by the university.

Speaking on how research which is one of the major responsibilities of universities, can be used for developing solution to solve human problems, the Vice Chancellor appealed to government to support in the area of research funding and development.

“Universities have three major responsibilities, these are; teaching, research and community service. Among these responsibilities, research is the most important because research outputs are used for intellectual development through teaching and for developing solution to solve human problems in the community and by extension in the nation.

“It is a known fact that Nigeria is blessed with intellectuals and best of brains but unfortunately, our research outputs as a nation is very low .According to prof.Bogoro.the Executive secretary of Tertiary Education Fund (TETFUND), at the meeting of committee of vice Chancellors and registrars in private universities in Nigeria (CVCRPUN) held on Thursday 7th October in Bowen university, Iwo; ‘it is colonial heritage for Nigeria universities to emphasize teaching above research ‘. Bogoro thereby encouraged all Nigerian universities to pay premium to Research and development (R&D).

“I want to use this opportunity to appeal to the government to support academic staff so that they can attach priority to research. To do this the government need to make facility on laboratory equipment available for both public and private universities.

“The Federal Government Of Nigeria is also advised to make research grant available to researchers. Government should open TETFUND funding to private universities. This is important because all federal government licensed universities are the same in the area of developing manpower for the nation. So both public and private universities are partners in progress. There is also an urgent need to improve the welfare of academic staff across the country. Government should do everything possible to honour its agreement with Academic staff union of universities (ASUU)” Aribisala said.

Also, a member of the OUI Governing Council, Prof. Kayode Alao added that both the universities and government must encourage research for productivity over research for righteousness, saying that was the way to go for the nation to benefits from the ivory towers.