I wish to draw attention to the undergraduate provisional admission list (Merits List) for the 2010/2011 academic session of the Olabisi Onabajo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye, Ogun state, recently published in the Compass Newspaper,11th November 2010, the Direct Entry (DE) admission list, with regards to candidates from the institution’s internally coordinated remedial program, otherwise known as the Degree Foundation Program (DFP).
I wish to draw attention to the undergraduate provisional admission list (Merits List) for the 2010/2011 academic session of the Olabisi Onabajo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye, Ogun state, recently published in the Compass Newspaper,11th November 2010, the Direct Entry (DE) admission list, with regards to candidates from the institution’s internally coordinated remedial program, otherwise known as the Degree Foundation Program (DFP).
This program to which about 400 students were admitted for the 2010/2011 academic calendar is meant to prepare the candidates, who for one reason or the other could not get admitted into the university through University Matriculation Examinations (UME), now Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), conducted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB).
On successful completion of the program, which is run for three semesters within a year, the candidates who attained 2.5 CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average), i.e. scoring at least 20 out of 50 obtainable points in the post direct entry examination, conducted internally by the institution, are expected to be admitted into 200 level fulltime programme in their choice departments within the faculties of arts, management and social sciences as direct entry students.
Curiously, the recently released list of candidates purportedly offered provisional admission based on merits fell short of fairness on the part of the school management to some deserving students who had worked very hard to scale the huddles. And this boarder on the philosophy of our reward system as a people: a situation that now promotes mediocrity and relegates excellence! While the management claims that the provisional admission is drawn on merits, it has been discovered that the reverse is the case. Names of some individuals scoring below 20 out of the 50 points, in post direct entry examination, and having less than 2.5 CGPA, found their way to the list while a number of candidates with 35 points and 4.5 CGPA (distinctions) are conspicuously missing.
The admission is said to be on for sales, and principal officers of the two faculties (Arts and Social and Management Sciences) saddled with the running of the program have been alleged to charge parents between N80, 000 and N100, 000 to secure their wards admission into the school. Accordingly candidates with poor academic records, but with fat pockets, take precedence over the exceptional ones who lack the where-withal to pay their way through. These sets of students being short-changed run the risk of being denied admission, or at best, if they are lucky, will be given courses they never asked for. When confronted with barrage of complaints from some aggrieved parents and their wards on the apparent flaws in the published lists, the Dean, Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Professor George claimed that the “error” was from JAMB, and gave assurance, that the next list to be released by the school would address the obvious defects.
It is on record that, Olabisi Onabajo University, an institution owned by the Ogun State Government charged between N220, 000 to N250, 000 as school fee last session excluding “other payments” for the said program, and it may be hiked this session! The institution charges one of the highest fees payable in governments’ owned universities in Nigeria, both for its ‘regular and irregular’ programs offered. Regrettably, there are no measurable investments in infrastructures and other learning facilities that can guarantee quality education. Presently, the university is under lock and key, due to the inability of the state government to address the demands of the lecturers, bordering on proper funding, research grants, wage increments etc. In fact, some sets of degree foundation program, diploma students and part-time program received their lectures outside the main campus at Ago-Iwoye, in a set of buildings shared with secondary school students, donated by a kind hearted individual, located along old Lagos road, Ikangba, Ijebu Ode, which in other climes are not good enough for poultry farming! Yet the governor and other government’s officials in the state are more interested in spending billions of naira of public resources on frivolities and politics of preservation in power after the next election.
All well meaning Nigerian should prevail upon the OOU management to end principle of “cash and carry” admission and ensure those who genuinely deserve it are admitted. We should also call on the governments of Ogun, Lagos and South Eastern states, where lecturers in their various state owned universities have been on strike for several months, to save the lives and careers of the Nigerian youths, which their actions or inactions are destroying. The governments at all level should adequately fund public education as this is not only imperative for functional education but also removes the basis, though not justifiable, for commoditised and rotten admission processes as it obtains in OOU Ago-Iwoye.
Eko John Nicholas,
A Farmer and Member of Education Rights Campaign (ERC)
Wrote from Ijebu Ode, Ogun State
[email protected]
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