MAPOLY to award degrees soon —Rector

PLANS have been concluded to upgrade the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), Abeokuta, Ogun State, to a degree-awarding institution, the rector, Professor Oladele Itiola, has disclosed.

Itiola made the disclosure in his office while hosting representatives of the 1990/1991 set of Mass Communication graduates of the institution, who donated textbooks worth over N1 million to the Mass Communication department.

The donation is part of the set’s contributions to assisting the institution in its re-accreditation crusade.

The textbooks, authored by foreign scholars, consisted of 37 different titles from the varying fields of communication and technology, and were received by the Head of the Mass Communication Department of the institution, Amos Kola, in Abeokuta.

Flanked by the institution’s bursar, Oluyinka Ogunsola; Director of the School of Communication and Technology, Dr Goke Rauf; Head of Department (Communication), Amos Kola; as well as the institution’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Sulaiman Adebiyi, the rector said the management would soon get the ‘Approval in Principle’ of the National Universities Commission (NUC) to commence degree programmes in some courses.

He also gave the assurance that the institution was prepared to receive officials of the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) for the re-accreditation of Mass Communication in the polytechnic.

The rector said that the visitor to MAPOLY’s, Governor Ibikunle Amosun, who himself is an alumnus of the institution, had charged the management of the institution to go all out and achieve the objective, no matter whatever it would cost it.

He further disclosed that the much-sought-after MAPOLY Campus Radio would soon commence operations, as arrangement was already in the final stage.

Earlier in his remarks, the leader of the 1990/1991 set, Pastor Ezekiel Obasanya, told the rector that his set was around to water the seed they planted in 1990 when it established the Mass Communication library.

Obasanya, who had in his team a senior staff of the school in the Students Affairs, Yemi Ajibola, and Special Assistant to Governor Amosun on Media and Strategy, Sola Balogun, among others, noted that MAPOLY had produced successful journalists in the Nigerian media industry.

He promised that the set would not hesitate to “partner, network, as well as collaborate with the management of the institution in its efforts towards taking the institution to an enviable height among higher institutions in the country.”

In his remarks, the head of the Mass Communication department, Amos Kola, commended the set for deeming it appropriate to give back to the institution that groomed them.

He described the book presentation as his own “personal birthday gift” since such was coming in less than 72 hours to his golden birthday anniversary. He also pledged that the department would make judicious use of the textbooks.