Nigeria Universities Updates

A new Registrar has been appointed for the University of Jos. He is Mr. Danjuma Jilli-Dandam ESQ who until his appointment was the Deputy-Registrar in charge of Senior Staff Establishment in the University.

The appointment, which takes effect from the 24th June, 2010, was approved by the Governing Council of the University after considering the Report of the Selection Board for the appointment of a substantive Registrar for the University. It is for a renewable term of five years.

Mr. Jilli-Dandam, a career University Administrator and Lawyer, takes over from Mr. Zingfa D. Galam who is retiring after many years of meritorious service to the University.

Aged 53, Mr. Jilli-Dandam obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Combined Honours) Degree from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1980. He has a Masters Degree in Public Administration as well as a Bachelor of Laws Degree both from the University of Jos. He is also a 2003 Graduate of the Nigerian Law School.

Mr. Jilli-Dandam began his administrative career in the University of Jos as an Administrative Officer II in 1982 steadily rising to the position of Deputy-Registrar in 2003. He has held many administrative positions in the various administrative units of the University which, among others, included Faculty Officer; Admissions Officer; Assistant Registrar, Vice-Chancellor’s Office; Alumni Relations Officer; Secretary, Institute of Education.

Mr. Jilli-Dandam is currently a member of the Governing Council of the College of Arts, Science and Technology, Kurgwi and Hails from Gazum, Langtang North Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Matriculation Board, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, has said that the Federal Government plans to standardize the conduct of the post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria in Bwari, Abuja on Thursday that the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa‘i, had already promised that the exercise would soon be carried out.

“It is difficult for me to say categorically what is going to take place. I’m also aware of the pronouncements by the National Assembly on the issue,” he said.

Ojerinde said that although the federal lawmakers had decried the procedure being adopted for the conduct of the post-UTME, he stated that no law had been made to cancel it.

He said, “Personally, let me say, as an individual, I’m not against the conduct of post-UTME, but I’m against the procedure.

“I’m against the extortionist process of conducting the examination. I’m also not comfortable with the unstandardised nature of the examination.

“If somebody is doing post-UTME in Maiduguri, can we use the same procedure in Lagos? If you do it at the University of Lagos, can you use it in LASU? The method should be usable all over.”

NAN reports that JAMB is expected to hold a technical session between July 13 and 15 to consider the first batch of UTME candidates for admissions into tertiary institutions.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Six universities from across the country have been given a total sum of N24 million financial support by Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited (EEPNL) as its University Partnering Programme (UPP) enters the third year.

The beneficiary universities include Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Delta State University, Abraka and the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, University of Benin; University of Calabar and University of Ibadan.

The UPP dates back to 2006 when EEPNL partnered Dr D. O. Lambert_Aikhionbare, an expert in geology to conduct a fact_finding survey in the Geosciences faculties of 12 Nigerian Universities. The six universities were selected based on need, curriculum, staff to student ration, among others.

The purpose was to recommend a programme that EEPNL, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and partner of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), could fund to enhance the quality of geosciences candidates graduating from the universities, and to determine which universities would be in the best position to partner with the company.

In return for the funding, the universities are to visibly increase the quality of their graduates and prepare a map of areas of the country close to them. The maps would be of high quality to be published by the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA).

The N24 million field work logistics support, which covers students’ transportation, feeding and accommodation during the field mapping exercise, is part of the funding earmarked for the third year of the pilot scheme.

During the course of the year, the universities will receive field allowance for supervising lecturers, 27 KVA diesel generators, 10 KVA inverter, digital cameras while provision of insurance cover has also been made for students and lecturers.

To enhance the quality of graduates produced by Nigerian Universities, EEPNL, has donated a total sum of N24 million to six Nigerian universities.

According to Susan Eshett, EEPNL’s Major Projects Manager, “It is no secret that Universities lack the funds to facilitate proper knowledge transfer to students in areas such as mapping and geology; despite their willingness.

Inadequate exposure of students, as a result of lack of equipment and even personnel, results in what the outside world would refer to as half-baked graduates.

We believe the University Partnering Programme, which we have undertaken to fund, would empower benefitting students to contribute their quota and perform excellently in their area of endeavour, which is geological sciences” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the beneficiary universities, Idowu Olayinka, Head, Geology department, University of Ibadan, expressed their gratitude to Esso for its financial support. He also promised that the schools would strive very hard to meet the objectives of the programme.

Since the inception of the programme in 2007, with a standardisation workshop held in Benin City, Edo State, the programme has recorded several landmark achievements.

These include the purchase of field mapping equipment such as 60 global positioning systems; 360 geologic hammers, 42 Brunton compasses, 300 Silva compasses, 10 sledge hammers and 360 hand lenses. The funding of the UPP has also enabled the purchase of six new mini-buses for the schools.

The UPP has further facilitated the publication of the book of proceedings of the standardization workshop. The funding has further aided collaboration with the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency to map parts of the country while students have been trained by experts in the area of field mapping.

Specifically, students of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria produced an unedited draft map of Gombe as a result of their Geologic field mapping exercises.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Babcock University, Ilishan, Ogun State held its 8th convocation ceremony recently in which 899 graduands were conferred with various degrees out of which 641 were ready to go and 258 summer graduates.

There were 29 First Classes, 586 second Upper Division and 26 second Lower Division.
Professor Kayode Makinde, the Vice-Chancellor, said at the event that Babcock is gradually ascending the height of its dreams and mission training the trainers, leading the leaders.

“This is an unbroken tradition we have faithfully kept since this institution attained the status of a University in 1999. This year for the first time, the university mustered the willpower with God’s enablement, to apply its long-resisted regulation requiring a “C”grade minimum in any core or required course through divine inspiration, we have set apart the first Sunday of June each year as a day we celebrate our high achievers – you parents, students, servant leaders for a new generation of Nigerians in the world.”

He titled his address “The Audacity of knowledge: Private Universities
As ‘Agents provocateurs for African Development,” saying that while many rich and powerful people are in reality subjected to a morbid existence of mental and emotional bondage and servitude, it is ironical that from the bowels of Robben Islands the Mandelas of this world dictated the course of world history and impacted its destiny.

“Knowledge indeed is power, the power to be and to do, to make a difference. Knowledge is the insatiable commodity which abundance was enshrined in Nigeria with the 1999 rebirth of hope heralded by the approval of private universities to revitalize, reorientate and redeem the hitherto morbund Nigerian educational.”

Makinde recalled that as for any daring innovation within a myopic traditional colonial enclave like Nigeria, private universities were the joke of the public university campuses until things fell apart again and the children of state and federal university professors and administrators constituted the majority of private university enrolment.

“What an irony that in ten short years in which the bars of educational entrepreneurship were raised at the level of productivity and accountability, new standards set and healthy competition introduced into a hitherto “sellers market,” riddled with crying wastages and redundancy, what used to be derisively ridiculed as “glorified secondary schools” is now labeled “elitist” by the same defensively critical assortment of skeptics in the national intelligentia.”

The Babcock Vice-Chancellor likened the situation to that of Barack Obama who was written off as insignificant before his “audacity of hope” transformed this childhood dreams of ruling the world into reality only for his critics to turn around and accuse him for arrogant elitism.

His words:

“We believe in the “project Nigeria” for which, like Babcock, failure is simply NOT an option. That is why we keep innovating, mobilizing, net-working nationally and internationally. The job description of any chief executive officer of a University that will not only survive but impact and transcend the 21st century must go beyond managing of resources on ground at his or her inauguration but to dream new dreams and channel innovative pathways to resources generation, accumulation and multiplication.”

He stated that Babcock University has continued to impact the world through the influenced of young men and women trained to be citizens of excellence.

According to Makinde, the Babcock brand has gained so much public confidence and has become a national benchmark for excellence and stability. On how private universities have survived:

“Without any subvention or grant from government, private universities rely heavily on tuition, internally generated funds and donations from lovers of education to meet their running expenditures. As a result, not many people have been encouraged to take up this initiative while a lot of those who enthusiastically rushed in for the name or anticipated profit are now stranded midway into operational, structural and systemic bankruptcy.

He said as a pioneer private university in Nigeria, Babcock has been battling with her own share of these challenges.
He disclosed that the university is recording significant growth in her finances. From a balance sheet of N356m at take off and N1.8bn at the inception of this Administration in 2006, “we have grown to N6.86bn in 2010,”adding, “we partner with our parents and other stakeholders to bring up the best facilities in the nation in favour of learning and research.”

Makinde congratulated all the Sapphire Graduating class 2010 for the academic achievements which are being recognized in the conferring of the degrees.

“This is the reward for all that you have endured the long hours of study, apprehension as the assignment deadlines approached, the frustration of being unable to locate research materials and the sleepless nights before the examinations.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

There has been a lot of argument on the proposal by the House of Representatives to scrap the Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) formerly known as Post-UME in recent times and since it is the students in the institutions who will be affected by the effect of such move, whether positive or negative, it has been deemed necessary for parents of majority of the students who are also their sponsors to speak out on this issue.

According to Chief (Mrs) Maureen Bakare, Chairman, UNILAG Parents’ Forum, Post-UTME is the screening procedure for admitting students into an institution to ensure that such students are able to receive tuition and pass whatever examination that will prove them qualified to pursue the career of their choice.

Screening students before admitting them had been a practice in all institutions from the base to the apex of our educational system since the introduction of education into our country, Nigeria.

This had continued in all our institutions till the early 1970s when admission into tertiary institutions especially, was now based on passing the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination.

To have discontinued screening examination for admission into tertiary institutions is a deviation from the norm. This deviation brought a canker worm known as examination mal- practice.

This cankerworm attained such a level that it became difficult to eradicate and no one could rely on results released by the JAMB and the Federal Ministry of Education had to introduce the Post-UTME examination and screening process in 2005.

The Unilag Parents Forum observed that the Post-UTME screening revealed that many students who scored highly in JAMB examination scored zero in Post-UTME examination. Many of them were not even able to communicate intelligibly in English language when interviewed.

The examination also highlighted the atrocities perpetrated by special Jamb centres which dished out high marks to students who never wrote the examination.. We have observed that since the screening started, forced withdrawal of students from the university for inability to cope with the demands of their studies has reduced to the barest minimum.

In addition, cultism, rape, robbery, drug addiction and all forms of harassment have been curbed to a large extent. We notice with gratitude to the screening exercise that peace, decorum and sanity pervade the university atmosphere because majority of the student population are now the serious_minded ones who are willing and able to learn.

We therefore wonder why members of the House of Representatives who brought up this matter did not examine the issue deeply before contemplating the scrapping of Post-UTME.

These are many issues that still need to be addressed to bring the education system in this country to normalcy on which we believe the House of Representatives should focus their attention.

Bakare in a press statement said that we wish to point out that before the Post-UTME screening started, requests for admission into our tertiary institutions were made by people in high places compelling the authorities of the institutions to admit students once they sat for JAMB examination even when their marks were low or when it was obvious that they did not write the examination.

Many of such requests were made for girl — friends, some of whom became their second or third wives. Some of such female students who were admitted whether the institution liked it or not, became distractions to those students who were academically qualified to study.

Many of the sponsors took the students away from the halls of residence at weekends returning them on Monday morning, fagged out, unable to attend lectures and harassing their lecturers with gratification when it was time for examination.

It was for this purpose that the Unilag Parents Forum had to erect a billboard at the gate of the university warning our children to beware of ARISTOCRATS who might lure them away from their studies with their ill – gotten wealth.

Now that the universities are producing many students in First Class & 2nd Class Honours category as a result of very serious and capable students admitted through the Post-UTME screening, it is baffling to find that our lawmakers are now struggling to bring lawlessness back into the tertiary education system.

Since we have many parents among our lawmakers, even though most of them have their children studying abroad, they should please work towards bringing perfection into our educational system so that our children especially those who do not have means for studying abroad can remain in Nigeria to study without tears.

This is our stand as parents of students at the university of Lagos and we are certain that there may not be many parents of other universities whose views are opposed to ours.

We are not unaware of the excesses of some institutions especially high cost charged for the screening of students for admission and we did not keep quiet on same. That, however, is not enough reason for us to throw away the baby with the bath water.

We hereby appeal to our Lawmakers to allow Post-UTME screening to remain.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for admission into various Postgraduate degree programmes of the University of Ilorin.

APPLICATION FEES
Application fee for all programmes is N10,000.00 only (Applicants within Nigeria) or $100 only (International Applicants).

DATES AND VENUES OF QUALIFYING EXAMINATION
A qualifying examination for all applicants for the Postgraduate Diploma in Computer-Science and appropriate category of those seeking admissions into Master’s degree programmes, will be held on Saturday, July 10, 2010, at 8.30a.m. at the following venues:

THE AFRICA HALL, MINI CAMPUS – For candidates seeking admissions into the College of Health Sciences.

THE UNIVERSITY MAIN AUDITORIUM AND FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES LECTURE THEATRE – For candidates seeking admissions into the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences.

FACULTY OF EDUCATION LECTURE THEATRE – For candidates seeking admissions into Faculties of Education and Communication and Information Sciences.

THE NEW SCIENCE LECTURE THEATRE For candidates seeking admissions into the Faculties of Agriculture, Arts, Engineering & Technology, and Science.

NOTE: There will be no formal letters of invitation to candidates for the qualifying Examination as this advertisement will serve as the invitation.
METHOD OF APPLICATION
For details on method of application, visit the University of Ilorin website: http:www.unilorin.edu.ng and click on Postgraduate School on the home page. Application Forms are to be completed on-line and will close on Monday, July 5, 2010.

Note that the latest date for receipt of supporting documents (including transcripts) at the Postgraduate School, is Friday, July 16, 2010. In addition to notifying successful applicants by e-mail, the list of admitted students will be posted on the University of Ilorin website.

For Detail Click Here

Popularity: 5% [?]