Delivering his address at the 34th convocation ceremony of the university, Oyekan said that lack of attention to human values had led to increase in social vices, which, he said, had retarded the nation’s development.
He said the pronouncement that a graduate is admitted to a degree having been found worthy in character is no longer true because the character is no longer promoted or tested.
The Pro-Chancellor, who described the development as a failure in the educational system of the country, therefore, enjoined the federal government to address the matter.
“Although, virtually all tertiary institutions announce at every graduation ceremony that each of the graduates is admitted to one degree or another ‘having been found worthy in character and learning’, one does not need to research far to realise that the claim is only partly true. It is true in relation to the learning aspect only. The ‘character’ aspect is hardly promoted or tested.
“There is no provision in the curriculum of our tertiary institutions that gives serious attention to the need to instil in our products the lofty human values, the dearth of which is plaguing our efforts to develop the enormous potential attainable from the vast human and natural resources that our nation has been blessed with.
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“I believe that unless we address this value-deficit challenge, every sector of our nation’s established structure will be bedevilled by corruption, indiscipline, indolence, irresponsibility and such anti-development traits.
“The incalculable costs to the nation of widespread corruption, cultism, gangsterism, robbery, kidnapping and drug addiction, etc., dictate that serious efforts be made to tackle at our tertiary institutions’ level, the anti-social cankerworms crippling our development efforts and keeping us in the league of the stunted, rather than among the giants in the comity of nations”, he said.
Oyekan said that he would pressurise his council and the management of the university to “set the ball rolling and be in the vanguard in the necessary national effort to devise an educational system in which spirituality and security are integrated.”
He said this is to ensure that universities produce professionals of the highest calibre who are distinguished in their various skills and at the same time in the manifestation of the best of human values in their character.
The Pro-Chancellor also called on the government to increase funding of tertiary education in the country, saying that this is necessary because all the most admirable goals the tertiary institutions aspire to achieve would be difficult to realize without adequate funding.
“Much as we are not unmindful of the parlous state of the national economy, we believe that education is such a crucial sector to the nation’s overall development that no progressive government can afford to toy with it.
“Indeed, the percentage of the National budget allotted to the education of reordering of 8% is a far cry from over 25% that the United Nations recommends for developing countries.”
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