We want to make TASUED the best - VC

Professor Kayode Oyesiku,
VC, TASUED

The Vice-Chancellor of Tai Solarin University of Education, Professor Kayode Oyesiku, while fielding questions from newsmen at a media luncheon organised by the institution recently, throws light on sundry issues affecting the institution. Sulaimon Olanrewaju and Olayinka Olukoya were there. Excerpts:

THERE are complaints by your students about the on-line registration, which they describe as cumbersome.With these developments, some may end up not registering for their courses.What is your reaction to this?
It is pertinent to say there is a structural imbalance for most undergraduates in Nigeria universities, ours is not an exception. Following simple rules and regulations have become extremely difficult for Nigerian undergraduates. The ability to avail themselves of the comfort of modern development has also become very difficult for them. I am still trying to come to terms and I will give you some examples. We are trying to go electronic and at the inconvenience of those at the electronic planning centre, we plan to get them pay on line and register on line. Pick up your card to pay and when you print your receipt, go and register.

All the courses have been put on electronically. All you have to do is highlight those courses that you want to register for and the Heads of Dept. would go through at their convenient time. I can tell you most students find it difficult to do. We are at the end of the month of April, we started the session by the end of October, yet we still have about 40 percent of the students yet to pay and register. Part of the path we have to take is what is also construed in their mind that you have to be fraudulent before you achieve anything. And therefore the window of opportunities given to them to go and pay wherever they want and do their registration is now giving us some sleepless night. Some of them will pay and not register. If you pay and you do not register, we have no record of you in the university.

But the ability to go and pay and not register is also an opportunity for them to have a credit card in perpetuity. In other words, you do not need a scratch card. If you have a scratch card, you buy it at N300 or N500 and you throw it away. But we made a provision for our students to have the card of the university from those designated banks that can allow their parents to credit them anywhere. It also allows them to use the ATM wherever it is available. When you now have your card, you may have N45,000 on it and you get to the university portal to register, indicate you are 400 Level student in Mathematics, the machine knows how much is to be deducted, and leave your balance for you and you can do whatever you want with the balance. We have heard that we are making some mistakes by giving them the opportunity for this comfort. You will see many of them exchanging the cards, stealing the cards of each other and using other people's cards without authorization. What they do is when they get there to pay; they will halt that particular process. They will not get the receipt. Take away the card and get back to the bank, then lodge a complaint that they have transaction problem. We also have a way to know. If you have actually started and you held it up, only to complain, we know. There is a way to know that you have actually started and held it up yourself so that you can go and withdraw out of your money at so so so time. That thing gave us some challenges on how to get those records. So many that have been given the fees just refused to pay.

And I am talking of people who actually are children of those that are extremely wealthy. As a result, the total population of those that we expected for the full time degree is actually about 13,000. We have just 9,000 on our records this morning and so when we are planning time table for lectures, you have estimated those who have registered at a particular point in time to be 650, then constrict them to a certain area that can contain say 700, only for you to find 1,200 in that class. That registration is also to provide for those who have carry-overs. But when they actually did not indicate that they have carry-overs, it is difficult to then capture and provide enough space for what they needed to do.

Some students complained of shortage of lecture rooms.What measures are you putting in place to provide adequate lecture theatres for your students?
It is actually not true. In the past one year or so, we have a double bunk of 500 sitting lecture rooms and the total population of our students keep on decreasing courtesy NUC. When you graduate about 1,800, those you are going to replace them with would just be about 600. We do not have that large number of students any longer. And the same thing happens during examination and those who have carry – overs now going to join those students without registering. We have tried to do it conventionally by trying to let them line up before examination and check those for the particular course to see those who have registered. You find out that those who registered among the crowd would be 300 and you will spend two and a half hours doing that.

Ok allow them in and begin to check. In the course of it, you only need about 12 or 15 to go out and throw a banger into the class. That examination is over. Even 10 students getting out, and one of them throwing a stone through the glass, before you know it, those writing exams will fly out, especially those who are not not prepared. What we then do is to wait for the result. In this university, there cannot be shortage of examination hall because the contingency is very wide. We place those large classes in very large lecture halls that can seat 3000 at a go and I don't see any one writing examination for more than 1,000 students at a go in this university. There couldn't have be no classrooms for examination or shortage of it.

There are allegations of students not being released on time.What are the factors responsible for this?
Result not released is not also unconnected with this. You can only release result when the records are there. You have a script set of 700. The list of students the Director of Electronics gave to you are just 200. You take it from there only to discover that only about half of them even actually registered for the course. So the lecturer says do I mark those who are not registered or not. Let me mark them any way because they may wake up and go and register and you have to consider them.

In doing so, you mark all and send to those in charge of examination compilation; you then find out that half of those who registered for the exam actually have a carry-over which is a prerequisite for this course they have just taken. You then take it back because such results cannot be computed. We wrote the last exams sometimes in October, the results of all the exams are ready for those who actually have registered and have complied. For majority of the other ones, they would not have indicated in their registration forms that they were taking that course. And without that it is almost impossible. In this university, three weeks after our exams our results are ready.

There are complaints from the students that their school fees are on the high side. Can you tell us why this is so?
The final year students pay N25,000 or thereabout. Let us take this down. The tuition which has been the responsibility of the Ogun State Government has never changed. It has never been increased. An average student in this university pays N300 tuition. Every other payment has to do with one service or the other. The increase is based on three major activities. One the electronic library project is an independent one to provide services for both staff and students. Hitherto, the students would often claim that they don't have access to up to date textbooks, journals, periodicals and so on and so forth.

Our study shows that at the end of every session, a student would have to buy about N20, 000 worth of books. We know majority never bought one single sheet. We then said there is a way to minimizing the cost. Let us go electronic. It is to make 37,000 volumes of books electronically available for you at your convenience. You pay N2, 700 and you have access to the books. The beauty of it is that those teaching also have access to the library and can refer you to those books which are available for you.

We learnt that the State government has concluded arrangements to relocate the Tai Solarin College of Education to Omu-Ijebu.What are the arrangements like?
The Ogun State government has said that it would be relocated to Omu for the sake of proximity. We have the same staff that are here and are likely to move there. Many of the students for the NCE 100 Level to 300 Level would move there and they have their accommodation around here. Government has commissioned a master plan committee for that place and they are already working, I am a member of that master plan committee and work is at an advanced stage.

It has also commissioned a group of architects to continue the design of various schools in that college. Their work is also at an advanced stage. Curriculum that is needed, we do not need to touch that. But what is needed is what you call academic brief which would allow for the architects and the planners to know for how many lecture rooms, laboratories would be needed which they have actually provided for. The College of Education is expected to be the best in this country because the planning starts from zero. I have been there this morning, the arterial road and the service roads have been done to allow those who are doing the construction to move in. September is very close by.

‘Non-formal education development, LG’s responsibility’

By Kehinde Adio

DEPUTY Director, National Mass Education Commission, Mr. Simon, Essiet has remarked that the development of non-formal education in Nigeria depended on how local government would lend its support to the programme.

He made this remark in Ondo State during his Adult Literacy promotion campaign visit to all the UNICEF B-Field focus local governments in the state. Mr. Essiest told Ile-Oluji, Okitipupa and Akoko South-West local governments authorities to earmark at least 10 per cent of their education budget for the development of non-formal education in their communities.
About 10 million youths of school age, are not in school, according to Universal Basic Education (UBE) research.

This implies that illiteracy level is on the increase in Nigeria and except local governments in the country give adequate support to education development, this country might not be able to achieve its Millennium Development Goals and Education for all programme as scheduled worldwide. Also speaking, Mr. John Ede, co-ordinator, NMEC South-South, who accompanied Mr. Essiet led team to Ondo State stated that UNICEF has set a good pace for every local government in the country to emulate for the development of education in the rural areas.

“Governance becomes easy when people are literates hence, the need for local government to replicate UNICEF’s education community development programmes and projects elsewhere in the state”, he said. Similarly, the Executive Secretary, Ondo State, Agency for non-formal education Princess Bimbo Olateru-Olagbeji enjoined the local governments to pay more attention to the development of early child education in their area.

According to her, the development would enhance child retention in school. “When a child is introduced to education in his early life he would not be a drop out. Rather he will complete his education even to university level.” Mrs. Yejide Ogundipe chairperson, Ile-Oluji Oke-Igbo local government and Honourable Tolu Babaleye, Chairman, Akoko South-West local government area, commended UNICEF and the National Mass Education Commission for their interest and support towards rural education promotion.

According to Mr. Tolu Babaleye, local government may need to be empowered with special fund for the development of non-formal education at the grassroots level. They expressed their readiness to make education more accessible to rural dwellers in their communities.