Professor Olufunke Lawal, the Director, Distance Learning Institute (DLI), University of Lagos, in this interview with Akinduro Akinrolabu, speaks on the relevance and challenges of the institute. Excerpts:

What is the statutory responsibility of your institute?
The statutory responsibility is to provide access to those students who desire higher education, I mean University education, but who because of certain circumstances cannot obtain the education with a regular student in what is known as regular University programme.  It is a provision need for those, who either working or engaged in other personal individual development progammes that will not allow them to be full time students.  They can learn and obtain university education, while at the same time, they are engaged in other activities of life, for example full-time employment, business, entrepreneurship, personal initiatives to contribute to the economy of the society.  So, this provision is for that category of students.

Of what relevance is the distance learning programme to the educational advancement of the country? 
It is of utmost relevance. In fact, the kind of education provided under distance learning initiative, theory and practice, will very soon overshadow the regular university programmes.  There are so many people outside there, who cannot access education in full time study basis, but who still desire that education by equipping and developing themselves and who now see the opportunities provided in distance learning education to attain those goals for themselves.  So it is going to continue to be relevant.  In fact it is going to be more relevant in the nearest future.  And very soon, I am afraid, most of our undergraduate programmes are going to be under the distance learning mode, while full time programmes will concentrate on post graduate works, post graduate higher degrees across the nation.  The need is there.  The people who want it are there and they are waiting for the door to be opened to them, so that they too can participate in higher education for growth and development.

What have been the major achievement recorded since you assumed office?
I actually came into office on 17 August, in the year 2010. So I am a year and a couple of months in office.  Achievement may be regarded as abstract, subjective and all of that.  But I am not one to shout that, I have done this or that.  I am not a noise maker.  I prefer to work very quietly, but achieve the little that I can.  But the little I have been able to contribute here is that I have been able to touch the lives of my students, by interacting with them and helping them to change their attitudes and behaviours.  That is their attitude to studies and university education. We have what is called the hidden curriculum and we have the obvious curriculum. That is, you come to the university, you take lecture, you write exams, you pass your exams and move up to the next level.  But in between, here are some aspect of the university life, that every student needs to imbibe. So, I started from there, by putting up what is called learning support system. Through this, you get involved in your students’ lives.  You understand their needs. You also know their problems and then sit down and work out the system for combating the problems and meet the need of the students.  That is one.

Another thing is that, students do not need to wait for long anymore, before they graduate.  And without singing too loud, I think, last January was the first time that DLI students would finish their exams in October and graduated in January. So we did that for the first time in January, 2011 and again we are going to do it this January 2012.  So this is the second year that we were doing it consecutively.  Students now get their result in time.  They also graduate in time and they use their certificates to gain employment, to earn promotion and to move up in their career.  It has been working for them and they have come round now to say that, they are very happy that they do not have to wait for so long.

There are some of the bottlenecks they usually encounter in knowing their status, obtaining information and passing information to the institutions where they have applied to for higher degree programmes, either within the country or outside.  We have reviewed the waiting time, from say one year or six months, to twelve working days. If a student sends in a request, within twelve working days it is processed and delivered.  I believe that is something we can say we have been able to do.  Then, the revamping of the educational programme, especially the content of their study modus, we have made a lot of progress on it.  Lecturers have been invited to write readable, standard materials for students.  I personally get involved in the editing of those materials. I edited from the point of view of language and style of presentation.  Another reader will come in and edit from the point of view of content knowledge.  That is how accurate, how structured, how organised the materials are.We shall soon be going to press anyway.  Our students will have study materials that they can be proud of. So we will be printing for them and they will be purchasing.

The next thing to that, which will start in earnest is e-teaching and e-learning.  We want to start this and we have been working on it.  We now have our website.  Students can access the web for information.  So we have started with e-registration, we are now doing e-application and come March, by the grace of God, we are going to beginning e-teaching and e-learning. Of course, I could not have done this alone.  First of all, the university is keenly interested in promoting distance learning of high quality for our students.  The support is enormous.  The university management, particularly the vice-chancellor, he is very supportive of this.  Also my staff have been wonderful.  I am a team player.  Here we come together and work as a family and everybody plays his or her role as it is expected.  This has really helped in moving the institute forward.  Apart from these developments, there are other less engaging development, like the beautification and rehabilitation of the academic environment. Also we have two giant structures under construction for academic activities in the institute.  They are at the completion stage and in a couple of week they shall be handed over.  There is increase in the facilities that are available in the institute for our students.

Our students are given a sense of belonging and we have been able to change negative perception, the public used to have towards over students. Formerly, people thought DLI students were just market women and men who just wanted to acquire university certificate for the sake of acquiring it.  But, we have proved to them that DLI students are upwardly mobile and intelligent people who have rewarding careers. We have also proved to them that DLI is not just any institute.  It is not a backyard institute.  We are vibrant and our students are doing very well. Last year January we had nine first class in Accounting and Business Administration. This year we have produced eight first class.

What are the major challenges facing DLI under your leadership?
There are challenges everywhere; even in your private life you have challenges. The challenges here are not completely different from challenges encountered in any other higher institutions.

The first one is that there are those who want to force themselves in. I mean those who want to become DLI students at all cost.  Those ones are a challenge, because they do all sorts of things, like forgery and falsification of documents. We have that and of course we promptly deal with such issues.  Then as I said earlier, this mindset is another thing.  There are those who feel that they do not have to work very hard to get a DLI degree so, when they come in they think it is a picknic or carnival. They do not realize that, they have to sit down and attend lectures, do their assignments, study on their own.  Remember that students come in with various needs from various backgrounds.  They are not the same.  You cannot treat them the same way.  So, you are dealing with various groups of students and you should have your coping strategy, your skill of dealing with different situations.  The way I will deal, for example with single girls, is not the way I will take up the problem of married, expectant or nursing mothers who are at the same time studying. So, my background in education and my own experience as a mother and being the oldest sibiling in my family, these are the things that help me to assist my students the best way I could. So emotional problems are usually enormous and you have to deal with them without breaking the rules.

Also we have the challenges of the attitude of the public towards the group of students I deal with.  Sometimes they are given names.Sometimes, there is over generalization, sometimes some people do not want to see them at all.  The mere name, DLI students is a problem to them.  Even at this, you still have to go ahead and impress it on those people that the situation is not as bad or as bleak as they think it is and that we actually have students who are really, really intelligent, hardworking, determined and resilient. So these are some of the challenges but I do not see them as challenges as such, because my education and experience have prepared me to cope with all of these. So there is no stress.  It is just that the work is unending. You move from one assignment to another and yet another and so on and it seems the work is not ending.