Prospective students to undergo drug test before admission — LASUED VC

Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University of Education (LASUED), Professor Bilkis Lafiaji-Okuneye, says its 4,500 prospective students would be subjected to a drug test before being admitted to the school.

Lafiaji-Okunneye, who narrated the panic a drug-addicted student created in the school months ago, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the measure had become imperative to sanitise the university community.

The educationist said that the LASUED authorities had liaised with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to ensure good results to guide the university in its 2024/25 admission screening.

The LASUED boss stressed that no matter how sterling a student’s University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) results were, it would not confer the student an express admission until he or she was certified drug-free.

She acknowledged the extra cost of the drug test to the school, but said that it was worth doing to foster students’ mental and academic coherence, and raise the standard for the new university.

“We are a teacher grooming institution, therefore we aim to instil in our would-be teachers the morals and discipline worthy of a teacher.

“This will enable them impact the same on pupils and students alike after their career training here.

“These are going to be the nation’s teachers tomorrow so the institution is taking extra measures to make the best out of them, for you cannot give what you don’t have,” she said.

Lafiaji-Okuneye decried the influx of socially premature students into the universities and tasked parents to informally groom their children on social values.

She said that parents should fortify their children with morals capable of warding off peer pressure that could lure them into drug and other deviant behaviours on the campus.

She cautioned parents to allow their children progress in school at their pace rather than compel teachers and schools to promote them to higher classes, in spite of them not being qualified for the promotion.

She frowned at parents that patronised special centres to enable their children pass examinations such as the SSCE and UTME.

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The vice-chancellor said that results obtained from miracle centres remained a fluke, and could not instill in the person the needed academic flair to persevere in tough times in the university.

She regretted the recent surge in students’ withdrawal from the university, attributing it to students that came into the system with unearned certificates and were, therefore, unable to cope with the university standards.

She applauded JAMB for steady introduction of security features in its examination, saying malpractices such as impersonation and others had declined drastically.

Lafiaji-Okuneye asked the organisers of the National Examination Council and the West African Examination Council to emulate JAMB in order to sieve the best from their examinations