NIGERIAN EDUCATION; WHO IS TO BLAME?

With the current state of education in Nigeria; I tend to know who is to be blamed, is it our political leaders or those that are inferior to them? It is quite obvious enough for us to know that, there are various factors affecting the educational sector in Nigeria, which needs to be given a greater concern.

The educational sector has not been functioning well, whether with the past governance of our leader or the incumbent ones. Neither one of them has made it their primary duty to develop or improve the poor state of education in Nigeria.

One can also recall education in Nigeria, as what is called Aristocracy which implies that the best citizen is allowed to be the beneficiary of education in Nigeria, because not everyone can afford private institutions which are exclusively made for the riches not the poor.

In this context, some students are not opportuned to enjoy education in Nigeria, due to not being financially buoyant enough. Private institutions are intensively expensive enough, which has actually shifted students’ interest to be admitted to either the state schools or federal schools.

Prior to this prospect, both the federal and state schools are not well managed and facilitated by the government either at the state level or the federal level.

However, the greatest challenge facing education in Nigeria and making it difficult to be liberated with education, is the capability of bringing about the sustainability development in adequate funding by the federal, state and local government to the extent that funding has been in response to conditionalities in regular strike of institutions and poor management of schools.

The fact is stubborn and indestructible that “Government are to be blamed”, this can also be regarded to as the actual cause of regular strike which has also contributed to the poor growth of educational sector in Nigeria. It has made some schools to be jinxed with constant calendar change of schools and irrelevant impediment for students to receive lectures in their various institute of learning.

THE YOUNGEST PHD HOLDER EMANATES FROM UNILAG

 Adegunle Olugbamila

The University of Lagos (UNILAG) awarded yesterday a PhD to Mr. (now Dr.) Olaoluwa Oluwadamilola (24), Africa’s youngest PhD holder.

Olwadamilola had the best PhD thesis, titled: “Studies on Fixed Points of Contractive and Expanding Maps in Multi-Dimensional Spaces”. He scored 5.0 Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) as Bakre Oluwafemi Abubakar, a graduate of Electrical/Electronics, emerged the 2012/2013 Convocation Valedictorian — he graduated with a superlative CGPA of 4.86.

Oluwadamilola’s parents are missionaries with the Deeper Christian Life Ministry.

They gave birth to him while on missionary work in African Central Republic, a French-speaking country, where Oluwadamilola had his basic and tertiary education.

He got a B.SC in Mathematics and M.SC and Physics before returning to Nigeria in October, 2009.

According to Oluwadamilola, he began his PhD in 2010, courtesy of a scholarship from the General Overseer of the Deeper Christian Life Mission, Pastor Williams Kumuyi. He spent the minimum three years for a PhD scholar in school.

Speaking with reporters at UNILAG Auditorium One, Oluwadamilola said: “I used to come first in my secondary school days, but not always. My performances became better when I entered the university.”

On his challenges during the programme, he said: “As a Christian, my schedule is very tight. I am focused. There were times when I faced distractions from friends who wanted to take me out. There is nothing bad in it, but it can make you concentrate less. There were times when I had job offers and was tempted to take them.

“I was discouraged at the beginning. One gets a feeling at the beginning of one’s doctorate programme that all the research topics had been considered by previous scholars and so there is nothing else to do, except for the most complicated ones that are most times beyond one’s ability. “Sometimes when you send your papers to international journals, they return it for one reason or the other. That does not mean your work is not good enough, but it can be very discouraging.”

On his next plan, he said: “I want to take another doctoral programme, which will be in either Mathematics or Physics. I will think of what topic to choose before I eventually go ahead.”

Abubakar, the valedictorian, described himself as someone from a privileged home.

Born of banker parents, he said it was not too difficult for him to study Electrical/Electronics, adding: “I will not describe myself as a bookworm, as I try to normalise everything I do. I am not a party freak, but once in a while, I attend social functions with my friends. I am privileged to have been born into a comfortable home. I must confess that I am a product of good advice. I chose the kind of friends I knew would influence me positively and you will always find me in their company.”

Executive-Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) Prof. Julius Okojie, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan, urged the university’s management to be more creative in boosting its Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR).

Okojie, who also commended UNILAG for the prudent use of funds, underscored the need for universities to seek help from the alumni.

The week-long convocation wrapped up yesterday with the inauguration of three projects – the Central Laboratory donated by an alumnus and the General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire & Miracles Ministry, Dr. Daniel Olukoya; the Biodun Shobanjo Mass Communication Multimedia Centre of Excellence, courtesy of the Chairman of the Troyka Group, Chief Biodun Shobanjo; and the Alumni Jubilee House built by the UNILAG Alumni Association in collaboration with Guarantee Trust Bank.

‘How I emerged UNILAG’s best graduating student’

Tolu George 

Bakre Oluwafemi popularly called jakre, the University of Lagos (UNILAG) best graduating student for the 2012/2013 session, finished from the department of electrical and electronics engineering with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.86. In this interview with Tolu George he talks about his experience in UNILAG and his prospects for the future amongst other interesting issues.
As the best graduating student for the 2012/2013 session. How do you feel?
There are two ways in which I can express my feelings. I am quite happy and elated on one hand, because I think it is a reward for all my hard work over 5 years, and I feel it is truly deserved because I paid my dues. On the other hand I feel ashamed in a way, because in the league of best graduating students my CGPA seems to be the lowest since my 5 years stay in this school.
Have you always been topping the class from your primary school days?
No, I think the turning point in my life started when I was in primary 5, from my nursery school up until primary 5, I was always between 2nd and 4th position, but from primary 5, God took charge of my life really, and from primary 5, I started taking first even through my secondary school days, I even graduated as the best in my secondary and won many awards including the Awokoya chemistry competition in 2008. When I got to the UNILAG, in my first year I was top of the class, but then I dropped to being the 3rd best until my 4th year, when I again became the best in my class.
When did you know that you were likely to graduate as the best student in UNILAG?
I had no idea, because I had three friends whose grade points were very close, there was just like a 0.01, 0.02 difference between our grade point, they didn’t know themselves, and I was the mutual friend among all of them. So graduating as the best student all boiled down to who got a 5.0 grade point in 500 level 2nd semester, and you would not believe it, we all had a 5.0 grade point which made the whole thing interesting. I have known Bolutife Awonaike, the best female graduating student for the 2012/2013 session since my 2nd year in this school, she finished with a 4.85 CGPA, Abdulhameed Lasisi my very close friend, who finished from civil engineering with a 4.85 CGPA also and Onagbola Kofo who was the best in the College of Medicine, she finished with a 4.84 CGPA.
What do you think made you achieve this feat?
Sleepless nights, that’s on the side though. I think I am a product of good advice and prayers. I also have a lot of mentors, and anyone that is above me, I always try and meet them to find out what I can gain from them, I always stuck to the good advice I got from some of my mentors. God has also been really good and kind to me. Let me share this experience with you, as funny as it may sound, there was a time when God postponed an exam, because I wasn’t ready for it. My sleepless nights also went a long way. I can proudly say that I don’t think anybody worked as hard as I did in my class and everybody knows, so it’s not about that guy was lucky, and all my classmates know that it’s an award that I truly deserve.
Who are your mentors you talked about?
My mentors are my parents. Despite coming from humble beginnings, they worked really hard to achieve success in their ongoing careers. They really are my pillars of support.
Other notable mentors include Elijah Olawaye, the faculty president of engineering, two years ago. Babalola Adeniyi, the best student in electrical engineering, four years ago. Ogunsola Bolutife, Oluwatobi Adekanye, Damola Agboola who were really influential during my time in UNILAG; and many others. They were serious minded and always willing to help.
What motivates and inspires you?
For me the first thing really is to be able to make my parents proud, that’s what really pushes me, to be able to call my mum or dad and tell them I had 5 point this semester, the way they will all rejoice and shout and celebrate. The fear of failure is also something, that also pushed me, failure for me is anything lower than A. I can’t go to bed knowing that I would get a B grade in a course, that is why most times I always read through the night, because I didn’t want to get a B grade, it was always A grades and even the A grades were always 80s and 90s, that was always the aim.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Honestly, I don’t know, I am still praying to God about that. I am not the kind of person that fixates his mind on something. I have my ideas, but I don’t know where I can end up, I may probably be a lecturer, but what I really wish for is to have my own company, my own business which will involve engineering. The whole essence of the business is to give back to the community, add value to people’s lives and give back to the world. That’s just the aim for me.
What was your worst experience in UNILAG?
That will be my EEG 201 exam, Professor Mowete took that course. That was one of the most simple courses in this school, but because I was told before I got into the UNILAG that professor Mowete is hard, I became very jittery in the exam hall and I had a B grade in that course, but I knew that I could have done better, if I had set my mind straight and I had not listened to those rumours. I later went on to have A grades in all the courses he later took because I had learned the hard way not to listen to rumours.
What was your best experience in the UNILAG?
My best experience was my first time I walked into the faculty of engineering; I was so overwhelmed by the structures and the environment in general. My first 5.0 grade point was also an experience that I would not forget in a hurry, when I walked to the board and I saw that I had a 5.0 grade point, I was so emotional and I called my parents. I had other 5.0 grade points in UNILAG, but that particular one was really special.
Did you live a balanced life; in the sense that was it all just reading for you or you had time for playing and partying too?
I lived an overbalanced life and I give thanks to God for that. I was the sports secretary of my department in my fourth and fifth year. I was the head of sports committee in the whole faculty in my final year too. During my free time I used to go for some barbecue events too. I also spent time with friends as I had a lot of friends, I am sure I made more friends in this school than most of my classmates. I am friendly, I love making friends especially, if you are serious minded. I don’t discriminate. I also participated in and won the gold medal for University of Lagos Engineering Society(ULES) FIFA video game competition. I even organised numerous inter-class football matches during my time in UNILAG.
As best graduating student of UNILAG, do you think you are on the same level academically when compared to brilliant students from top rated schools like Harvard University?
Definitely! The thing is most Nigerian students usually underestimate their lecturers. Our lecturers are world class. There a lot of things that I have learnt here that I can go outside and brag about. I got quality education in UNILAG and I got it at a very cheap rate, it was almost as if I was given free education. We pay as little as N15, 000, which is nothing compared to what those students in Harvard and other top schools pay and I am sure I got the same quality of education. I don’t believe in letting my environment limit me, if there is something that you are not being exposed to, you expose yourself to it. I don’t expect my lecturers to teach me everything in class; I go out and learn as much as I think I should learn.
What are your hobbies?
I love playing video games; I love playing and watching football. I love swimming too, though I can’t swim, I love dancing too, though I can’t dance very well. I love to listen to rhythm and blues and also rap type of music.
What challenges did you encounter in the process of achieving this feat?
The power situation was a major challenge. I remember a time in which I had a 4 unit course in my second year. The night before the exam, there was no electricity anywhere in school, so myself and my roommate had to use the street light close to the senate building to read, all because I didn’t want to get a B grade in the course, other students would have just decided to sleep, but for me I just told myself that I could not let the imperfect environment cost me my grade. The laboratory courses I did were also a major challenge. If not for the laboratory courses, I would have finished with a 5.0 grade point. In those laboratory courses, you can write as much as you can and at the end of the day, you will still be given a C grade or B grade. There was time I had A’s in all my courses except the two laboratory courses I took in which I had C grades.
How has life after school been so far?
It’s been fun. I am working in a place where I am learning so much. Learning is just the thing for me, anywhere I can learn also make money.
What was growing up like for you, were you always confined indoors to reading?
Not at all, I was a very normal kid. I was very playful; and damaged a lot of things. I really enjoyed playing in the rain and even fell into the gutter like other kids. I also feel blessed to have had my parents around growing up; they were really influential in making me the man I am today.
Now that you graduated as the best student in UNILAG, what next after school?
So many people have ideas for me, but I am still praying to God about it, but left to me it will be to going for my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exercise, then I would probably go for my masters’ degree and then my PhD degree and if I get a good job offer. I would work for a while before I do my postgraduate studies.

IMMINENT STUDENTS ASPIRING FOR RAPID CHANGE

Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) is task with no doubt, creating and impacting knowledge in students that intends to study journalism as a whole. It’s common to find students on campus been hard-working to be outstanding journalists.

Although, the school aims at improving academic recognition of National Diploma, Higher National Diploma, Post Graduate Diploma and period of study in the practice of this noble profession.

On other occasions, most students find it difficult to cope with how the school functions in particular, which reflects their academic and professional performance. More so, some students call this great citadel of learning an “advance secondary school” due to inadequate social activities on the campus.

Prior to this prospect, the school management approves a-week for students designed activity, which a former student of NIJ Chiemeka Chidozie said in the NIJ professional training publication that, it’s unbelievable that the student week can be granted in NIJ.

There were only a handful of students that are referred to as fun seekers, and also some lecturers on campus. In any case, the management of the institute had served them a notice to be careful of irrelevant familiarity and irresponsible act among them, which suggested that too much familiarity should be placed in minimum.

For sure, one can easily tell from how the school runs it programme, that few social activities are held for students in the campus by the management; compare to academic activities which is the primary assignment given to the school.

For a right thinking man, the social aspect is an integral part of human life because every man is a social animal. Thus, if any man is denied of this enjoyment, he feels disconnected from the entire globe and feels nostalgic. Life seems solitary, sedentary, and brutish like such life in a state of nature in the dark ages to him.

A student of National Diploma, who claims anonymous, stressed that “the school is presently boring to everyone; just lectures only, even majority of the students call it a bore-doom. The school itself needs to ice-up our social life a bit to make it interesting and for NIJ to be a better place for students to study”.

It’s of no doubt and very obvious that students at such advance level are still treated like kindergarten pupils; for example a national diploma 2 students, Olaniyan Solomon said, “We are being compelled to leave the campus not long after the school hour, which is not meant to be so, because majority of us are engaged in doing one thing or other, either academically or socially.

In an ideal institution, you are not expecting students to be taken as those of under age; owing to the reason that it is believed that whoever gains admission into any higher institution of learning is not under age. As a matter of fact, irrespective of the laid down rules and regulations of any tertiary institution, the authority should in every essence deem it fit to take into cognizance that, students should be treated, approached, addressed, and recognised as adults”.

Perhaps, most students try to flirt around, to get themselves relief and more relax which has added some distinctiveness among their fellow colleagues. Observing the school at this time, students are often time sitting under the coconut tree, playing football and even hanging around with their love once, for all work without play makes Jack a dull boy.

On a standard level as this, college student are not meant to be treated like the management of the school has been doing. Speaking in retrospect, even the security guards harass students that intend to give funny excuses when they are asked to go out of the school compound.

The fact is that they are old enough to make decisions on their own, choose what is right at the right time, and know when is good for them to go home. Not until anybody come to make a vivid instruction for students to leave.

He further noted that, every higher institution of learning students is believed to have got an IQ that is sound to withstand the academic stress therein.

Many students don’t like how the school is constructed and been a Nigeria premier Monotechnic; it’s expected to be glamorous and well equipped to make the practice of skilled journalism less laborious and more interesting.

It should have made a complete sense, if the school itself or even the students are practicing core journalism in the campus, to enhance the professional performance and the true commitment for the job; the school is not opportune to own either a functioning broadcast station or any newspaper either within the school premise or even outside.

A lecturer noted during his class of recent that, a newspaper itself; aside from paying it reporters, require considerable financial layout, there are so many factors attached to it regarding the number of students that will buy the publication, because “We are all expected to make profit”.

The school needs to balance up the academic standard with the social standard to make the school worth studying and interesting for students on campus.

NIJ STUDENTS WEEK

 

Ace comedian, Alibaba, and other celebrities are storming the Nigerian Institute of Journalism since yesterday, to mark the forth coming student week, which holds at the institution.

According to the Chairman, Students’ Representative Council and Organizing Committee, Ojebola Matthew, the event is meant to help discover new potentials aside the regular academics which will help motivate them in developing their skills.

Ojebola added that aside the discovery of talents, the event will also be used to award some students who have been outstanding throughout the academic session. The 2014 Student Week would also be used to crown the new Mr. and Miss NIJ 2014.

HOW WE BUILT A CAR IN UNILAG> Abraham Imohiosen

Abraham Imohiosen, a 500 level Computer Engineering student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and team manager of a group of students who recently built a race car speaks to Tolu George on the motivation for participating in the Shell Ecomaraton competition, challenges of building the race car and benefits of embarking on the project.

Can you explain what the competition is all about?

The Shell ecomarathon competition is an event that is organized around the world in 3 different continents. The aim of the competition is to encourage students to build fuel efficient vehicles that are worthy of futuristic innovation. That’s what we are trying to do here; we were invited by Shell Nigeria last year to participate and represent Nigeria in the competition.

We were not the only ones, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) and University of Benin (UNIBEN), were invited as well. This year, it’s UNILAG and UNIBEN that will be participating and representing Nigeria in the competition. So that is that about the competition, now about our project, we actually entered into one of the few categories of the competition that’s the battery electric category, in these category students are going to build vehicles that will be powered by batteries.

Now there are other categories like the petrol categories, the diesel category, and the hydrogen cells category. In this category you power your vehicle with your petrol, diesel. So for the project we would be using an ICE engine (international combustion engine). A hydrogen cell is the one that you use for your battery. Our project is divided into four different parts the electrical system, the mechanical system, the materials system.

What is the benefit of competitions?

The competition encourages teams to use eco friendly materials in every way possible. Apart from racing on the track for fuel efficiency, because that is the ultimate goal of the competition, there is actually an off track session of the competition and in that part there is a price category, an award category called the communication award. So the communication award is actually given to the team that can put up, the most decent entry as per communication and publicity, so publicizing your team, communicating to people around in your locality about the competition and what you are trying to do. So that is that about everything

Is Shell funding the whole project?

Yes Shell is funding the whole project.

So what is next after this competition?

After this edition of the competition, we don’t just plan to sit back and say oh we’ve gone for one we are okay now we are good, we plan to go for subsequent competitions, in Europe, Asia and the Americas. So, for now we are participating in the European competition, the next time we would be going out we would be participating in the Asian competition, so as soon as they start the middle eastern/Africa edition we would be going for that as well.

Most students will not want to associate themselves with projects like this; they rather go to parties or engage in things that are ephemeral. So what basically inspired your entering into the project?

First of all, I don’t totally agree with you. I think if students are actually given the opportunity they will, if they give them the option of going to parties than actually participating in something like this they would actually choose participating in something like this. For me, at least may be I don’t go to a lot of parties, truly the project was like an only option for me, because you have a project and you don’t have any choice you have to do it

Only option in what sense?

Yes, I am not really the party type I spend most of my time studying.

So it was like a big break for you?

Yes, a very big break

How did you get members of the team?

We got the team members through the UNILAG mobile and some newspapers. We had a very huge turnout, there were some interviews and our supervising lecturers, picked some of the few that had what it took to actually deliver these project.

So how are you balancing school life and this project?

It was not been easy when we started initially, but we had to find a way to balance things out, and I believe almost everybody in the team did.

Who are the other team members?

Our lead is professor Mowete. We also have other supervising lecturers like Dr. Amuda of the department of Metallurgical and Materials Science, Engineer Tunji of Electrical Engineering, Engr. Mohammed of Electrical Engineering Dept, Dr. Gbeniyi of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Balogun of Electrical Engineering. For the students, we have other Segun Adebayo, 400 level Mechanical Engineering, Shade Agbaje, 400 level Mechanical Engineering, Rueben, 200 level Materials Engineering, Obinna Agba 500 level Electrical Engineering, Paula Aliyu, 500 level Computer Engineering and David Emukpere, 500 Computer Engineering. Others apart from myself include, Boye Abayomi, 500 level Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Ciramo Ojetunde, Creative Arts Dept., he was in 400 level as at the time we started this project but now a graduate, Tunji Salami of the Department of Mass Communication, Eze Owualah of the department of Chemical Engineering and Emeka Author also of the department of Chemical Engineering. We had a lot of people that contributed to the project one of them was Ibrahim Akanbi, we have sola, I have forgotten her surname, so those are the people we have working on the project and together we were able to put up what we have now, and it’s quite impressive, because when we look at it, we just smiled that even though this stuff is not 100%, this actually impressive for the time we had to work on it.

What were the challenges you faced in building the car?

First of all experience, I really appreciate what our lecturers did, initially they gave us the opportunity of exploring ourselves and seeing what we would come up with, so we had the issue of inexperience, for instance, I planned to buy some electrical components, because I didn’t really know that or I thought they were not available in Nigeria, instead of me resorting to local market first I bought the items from the UK and it took considerable time before the items arrived and so that took some time before I could actually get on with actual work on the project and also we had inadequate tools around unlike in some other parts of the world where you can easily get access to these tools or equipment, over here if you don’t have it you have to improvise in some very manual way. Also we had the challenge of logistics – when we had to get things, the hold up around was very serious, and it slowed us done. Also the local vendors of these materials around they don’t really know, they don’t have technical details about it, you understand you might want to buy an electrical component, you know am using these because am in electrical engineering, when you want to communicate with your colleague about it. You will call may be a number like x25570, you understand but when you go to the market and mention something like that the vendor will be confused he does not know, so he will probably have one local name that will probably be funny when you hear it. And two of you cannot really communicate, so you find yourself spending a lot of time there, you find yourself going there and not getting what you want even though it might be right under your nose. We had some other challenges but those are the two I can wrap my mind around now.

What are the benefits this project has brought to you?

Like I always tell my friends who is working with on this project, the project is a very big project and I have actually been able to aspire more than I was aspiring before. I would have envisioned a better last 6 months of my life because it has been very engaging, I can remember what I was doing 6 months ago, and that’s how 6 months seems so short. So in all this project has been very engaging, it has been a very big period of learning for me and also getting to know some other new people there, the members of my team

What future projects would you be working on?

What I want to do is not very conventional, actually am not going to be working on anything like this again, I plan to continue my career and study in the field of physics. Actually I don’t want to digress too much from electrical engineering

Do you think you stand a better chance to win the competition?

Frankly, I don’t think so.

Why do you hold this view?

The competition is actually very innovative, so we are first timers even though we might want to make ourselves believe that we can actually win, the truth is that for most teams that will be participating for the first time like ourselves, our focus is to actually meet minimum standard of the competition, because there are actually rules, every year the competition organizers give out rules so if you don’t meet the minimum technical requirement for the competition you would not be allowed to race, so it’s like you didn’t come for the competition at all. So what we are aiming at is to actually meet these minimum requirement and get on the track, get our vehicle to race from the beginning of the track to the end of the track, then subsequent competitions our plan is to optimize our vehicle, and actually put in an entry that is going to say ok I want to compete with the best teams in this competition.

Do you think projects like this will bring about development in Nigeria?

I believe that Nigeria cannot move forward if we keep telling ourselves that we have the resources, we have the manpower, we have the brains to do it, we have to actually do it before we can move forward and its projects like this that can actually make us do something, you can imagine the next time I would be trying to do something, instead of building a prototype of a car, I might be thinking of building a real car, from there I will be thinking of building an airplane.

 Source: Campus Life