Professor Labode Popoola is the vice chancellor of Osun State University (UNIOSUN), Osogbo. In this interview with OLUWOLE IGE, he spoke about the accreditation status of programmes in the institution as well as other issues. Excerpts
Can you give details into the accreditation status of courses being offered in UNIOSUN?
The university as of now has about 44 academic programmes, out of which about 39 are fully accredited, while the remaining await accreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
Recently, JAMB says that it has given universities the autonomy to admit students on their own. Are you satisfied with this level of freedom granted unto universities?
There was really no time universities were not empowered to admit students. The reason is that universities determine the quality of students they could offer admission based on the admission criteria. JAMB can only set the limits in terms of quota, considering the available capacity and human resources. This means that they cannot admit beyond a specific figure. It is only at this point JAMB seems to set a limit. However, in terms of the quality of students who are offered admission, universities can actually determine that. Of course, there is the issue of federal universities saying the cut off is 180; but, the truth of the matter is that so many universities admit students who scored below 200 marks in the United Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Take for instance, the case of University of Ibadan as an example, the federal rule is to offer admission to students who scored up to 180 marks, then you discovered that even students who scored above 200 marks are not offered admission.
What is your take on the rate at which universities are now getting involved in entrepreneurial activities like pure water, bread, blocks and so on? Is UNIOSUN also into any of these?
My answer is yes and no. No, because I really don’t know why a serious university should be engaged in the production of water. This is a personal opinion anyway. People who did not go to school are the ones producing these things, and they are making profits. It’s been discovered that universities that are involved in the business are not really making the desired profits because of the cost of production. They’ve not been able to compete with people who are really into the business. In some cases, you have professors as directors or managers of pure water factories owned by universities; whereas, you probably need a man with just an Ordinary National Diploma to be the manager. There is nothing ingenious about producing pure water. Someone who doesn’t attend school at all can produce it. I am not comfortable with that. I think I have the same feelings with bread making. I would be glad if the University of Ibadan or Osun State University is producing a kind of bread that is different from the ones we are all used to, or a kind with more excellent quality and which would cost 50 per cent less than what is being produced by the larger society; ditto for block moulding. There is nothing ingenious about all of these things.
On whether UNIOSUN is also involved in any, I inherited a water project, which I am not excited about. We are still looking at how successful it would turn out. My idea is: let private investors run these businesses to make them profitable. I cannot imagine myself appointing a professor to run such ventures. However, we want to venture into block making, not as a commercial enterprise. We don’t have perimeter fences, which poses security risk. What we hope to do is to engage the services of students, particularly the indigent ones, at weekends. We would pay them as much as those who work in town earn, to mould the blocks for our use in the university. We are doing this to reduce cost.
It appears the growing phenomenon of students emerging with perfect score of 5.0 CGPA is gradually becoming a competition among universities, as to who would produce the next graduand with a perfect score. Do you think there is likelihood that this might lead to lowering of standard?
There are people who are naturally brilliant; but my worry is about their content. You see someone who is a First Class student with a disturbing content; likewise some people with 2.1. It is worrisome when a graduate cannot justify his or her result. It means there is a problem somewhere. I am speaking from the perspective of a teacher. I have produced students who had genuinely earned First Class, but they couldn’t compete favourable in the midst of other graduates. I have always told my students that it is not the result that matters, but what you are able to imbibe and express at critical moments. Good results are fine. I have seen people who made Third Class and have become great individuals and scholars. These days, you are virtually condemned if you come out with Third Class; you are not even given a chance to prove yourself. And that is why you have the rat race of everyone wanting to produce students who make perfect scores at all cost.
UNIOSUN does not have hostel accommodation for students and this has compelled most of your students to seek accommodation in private hostels. Is there any plan by the management to construct hostels? Don’t you think this would give room for some level of safety to students?
Not just safety, but it would provide an opportunity for character moulding in them and a kind of orientation that would make them useful to the society. I like to say that in other parts of the world, we have higher institutions that are also non-residential. However, even where students have to cater for their accommodation, the university is carried along in the whole process and the students are not left to do it on their own. In fact, by design, this university is not meant to be residential. I wouldn’t know why, but it is a big deficiency. The first five years were excellent due to manageable number of students in the university. Then, we had about 3,000 students; but now, we are talking about 15,000 students, with about 95 per cent of them living outside the campus. They are exposed to all sorts of vagaries in the community, and they associate with people whom they have no business associating with.
We also have a situation whereby people are capitalising on this prevailing circumstance and landlords are overcharging students on rents. For us it is a big problem, considering especially the recent happenings around here. The fact is that we cannot build hostels overnight, but we can have some level of control by having students’ Lodging Bureau. In other words, anyone who wants to run hostel business for UNIOSUN students must register with us. We would like to know the facilities in the hostels; how many rooms are there, the number of students per room and the security management of such hostels. We also make sure students don’t have access to the private hostels without the university. We would have to give such hostel a clean bill to operate. In the short terms, that is our plan, but on the long term, we would have no choice other than build hostels either by ourselves or through Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Recently you addressed a press conference, where you said students owed tuition fees running to over N2 billion. What is the situation now?
When you don’t apply rules, people take things for granted. When you say there is a deadline for the payment of tuition fees and you don’t enforce it, what do you expect? Someone might just give you a call and plead that you give students more time to pay up. Right now, we have been able to put our feet down, and thank God, there hasn’t been any insurmountable difficulty. Now, students are paying. Not all of them anyway, but things are far better.
Some weeks ago, two students of your institution were shot by policemen in one of the private hostels near the school premises. What is UNIOSUN management doing to avoid a recurrence of such incident in the future?
We have always collaborated with security agencies; but whether you like it or not, once in while there will always be mishaps or people who may just be deranged and behave out of context. From the time we have been having a police\student clash, which I inherited though. The students have always been at the receiving end. At times the police accuse the students of being involved in internet fraud, and they would compel them to go to their accounts and withdraw money for them. At times, they threaten to implicate them of having ammunition in their custody, take their photographs and charge them with armed robbery. It had been on like that, but it got to the peak two Saturdays ago, and I believe that would be last time because the entire society, country and international community were actually in discontent with what happened. Even if those boys had actually committed any offence, I don’t think the law of the land allows that they be shot. They are not animals; but unfortunately, it happened. Immediately the news got to us we swung into action. We have secured their safety and well-being and we have engaged the services of security agencies.