Bowen in very good standing among 99 private varsities ― Obasanjo

“I wish to note the impressive report on the standing of Bowen University which my office received on Friday October 29, 2021, from the National Universities Commission(NUC). The report confirmed that Bowen University is in very good standing among 99 private universities in Nigeria today. It earned full accreditation in all but one of the academic programmes in the university.”

This was contained in a convocation lecture delivered by former President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo(GCFR) held to mark the 16th convocation series of Bowen University, Iwo, on Saturday.

According to him, Bowen University, Iwo has fulfilled the main purpose for which the federal government enacted private university operation policy in 1999 to co-exist with public universities in the country, in terms of addressing the issues of academic stability, quality education delivery and character building in the lives of undergraduates while on campus. He commended the efforts of Bowen University and urged the management to keep improving on their performances in teaching.

Quoting from the National Universities Commission NUC)2020 report, he noted that Bowen University has introduced many techniques to achieve learner-centred and learner-driven teaching and enquiry –based classroom environment expose students to critical thinking skill acquisition education. He added that the institution has designed an interactive digital teaching application for effective learning.

In retrospect, Chief Obasanjo, in his lecture entitled: ‘Strengthening private universities for greater contributions to national development’, which he delivered online, narrated that in 1999, his administration was committed to granting operating licenses to private universities majorly to address the issues of access to university education, to resuscitate quality and academic stability in the Nigeria university education system.

He pointed it out that in the recent Times Higher Education global ranking of the world universities, a private university in Nigeria was third among all the universities in the country. He also affirmed that another private university was noted by the World Bank as a leader in Africa in the production of vaccines for Ebola and virus-related debilitating diseases. With a sense of enthusiasm, he said that employment data on graduates from Nigerian universities showed that a high density of products of private universities was being preferred by national organisations.

General Obasanjo, retired, admitted that private universities have proved their relevance in the nation-building process, but enjoined the founders and managements of the private Ivory Towers to further strengthening their research capacity, human capacity development, teaching aids and curriculum implementation. “Universities owe it a duty to be at the vanguard of national development through the generation of ideas and provision of data that will influence national policy formulation and implementation. The managers of our private universities should be taken through regimes of training on how to creatively mobiles funds for running their institutions.

The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor Joshua Ogunwole, while thanking the convocation lecturer, retired General, for honouring the invitation, reiterated the commitment of Bowen university to improve on its existing achievements.

He said: “ National Universities Commission, NUC, carried out resource verification on some of our new programmes and accreditation of some of old programmes. All the fourteen programmes presented for the exercise were given approval by the commission. it worthy of note that our alumni are competing very well with their peers in the labour market and standing out in their various fields Bowen is not producing job seeker graduates but those that have capacity to create jobs and solve problems. A total of 1021 graduates were presented for first degree awards of the university. According to the breakdown, 90 had First Class Honours, 409 of them were in Second Class Upper Division category, 390 finished with Second Class Lower while 75 were in Third Class Honours category.

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