UI can only admit 3,000 from 29,000 JAMB candidates —VC

The Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Professor Idowu Olayinka, has declared that only 3,000 candidates out of the over 29,000 who scored 200 and above in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and chose the premier university would be offered admission.

The vice chancellor stated this while speaking on the topic “Challenges of building a world-class university” at the 68th Interdisciplinary Research Discourse of the Postgraduate School of the institution.

Professor Olayinka noted that Nigeria remains the catchment area of the University of Ibadan.

He lamented that poor funding, infrastructure deficit, student-lecturer ratio and accommodation challenges would not allow the university to go beyond its present carrying capacity.

The professor of Geology listed inadequate teaching and research facilities, poor funding, overstretched infrastructure, inconsistent policy on education, inadequate staff and government attitude to education as some of the factors affecting the global competitiveness of the university.

“Funding is needed to make UI a world-class university. A globally competitive university is that which can boast of top-class scholars with sound funding of research because without research, a university is a glorified secondary school. While our goal is to train new generation of leaders, we have challenges towards achieving this.

“The mark of a truly world-class institution is measured by what her graduates do after leaving the institution. Oxford will boast that they have produced more Prime Ministers so is Harvard on world leaders. Of course, UI graduates are doing well all over Nigeria but we must do more so that our graduates can be blessings to Nigeria and the global community.

“Nigerian leaders should go beyond feeling bad at the ranking of our universities. If UI is presently ranked 19 in Africa and the top four varsities are in South Africa, then Nigeria government should understudy what they do in South Africa for their universities including research grants, learning environment and infrastructure.

“We cannot be globally competitive without electricity. We will be more productive if power is available. We should be playing leading role in research and innovation, contribute to local and regional economies and this will drive our global competitiveness.”

In his speech, chairman of the occasion and former Vice Chancellor, Professor Bankole Oyediran, noted that universities are the power house of knowledge, designed to contribute to development through the production of innovative works, ground-breaking research and high quality personnel.