The acting Vice-Chancellor, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Prof. Smaranda Olarinde, on Monday said 125 First Class degree holders are among the 1,415 graduands of the institution.

Olarinde said the graduands included 1306 undergraduate students comprising 125 First Class, 563 Second Class Upper, 473 Second Class Lower, 60 Third Class degrees and 109 postgraduate students.

The VC, who spoke during a pre-convocation press briefing in Ado Ekiti, said the university would also during the 9th convocation ceremonies, scheduled to hold on Sunday confer honorary degrees on four eminent Nigerians.

According to her, while Doctor of Letters will be conferred on the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi; the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe; and Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum; while Doctor of Law degrees will be bestowed on the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari.

Olarinde said, “In just 12 years of existence, our university has won several national and international awards and recognitions for excellence in teaching, research, innovation and impact in the life of the larger society through our community development efforts”.

Emmanuel Ofuasia, a postgraduate student of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Lagos State University has been awarded £1,000 to undertake research on Philosophy of Religion.

Ofuasia bagged a First Class (Hons) in Philosophy from Lagos State University (LASU) in 2012.

He also has a Master’s of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Lagos (UNILAG) in 2015 and has enrolled at LASU for his PhD since 2018

The grant is entitled: “English Language Support Grants 2021.”

It is mainly for non-Native English-speaking philosophers of religion.

The grant was made possible through the John Templeton Foundation and the Global Philosophy of Religion Project at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

According to the website of Global Philosophy of Religion Project at the University of Birmingham, “The awarded grants are expected to be used mainly to cover expenses relevant to the production of the documents in English, such as proofreading, book purchases and editorial assistance.

The winners of the stipends are required to submit their completed papers to English-speaking journals, as well as to us.”

Originally 10 awardees were targeted all over the world.

In a competitive affair, only 6 grants were awarded and Ofuasia is the only Nigerian among the 6 from thousands of applicants.

The other 5 awardees of the same category are Davi Heckert Cesar Bastos (University of Campinas, Brazil); Igor Gasparov (Voronezh State Medical University named after N.N. Burdenko, Russia)

Others are Ataollah Hashemi (Saint Louis University, USA); Dennis Masaka (Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe); and Soroosh Shahriari (McGill University, Canada).

Director-General, National Youth Service Corps, Brigadier-General Shuaibu Ibrahim, has called on corps-producing institutions in African countries to continue to collaborate with the NYSC in fighting against the issuance of fake certificates.

He made the call on Tuesday in Abuja at the second meeting with corps-producing institutions in some African countries and other critical stakeholders.

He said the long-standing tradition of routine evaluation and review of performances in the mobilisation process with critical stakeholders in Nigeria had given hope that the scheme was on the roadmap to success in the foreign segment bustle.

Ibrahim noted that the meeting was aimed at sustaining gains recorded from the maiden meeting held in 2019 as well as entrenching the culture of regular contact with universities and other higher institutions of learning as contained in the NYSC Act.

The Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Tuesday, inaugurated a 10-member Visitation Panel for the Lagos State University (LASU) Ojo with a view to looking into the activities of the university for the past 12 years and recommend for improved service delivery.

The swearing-in event took place at the Lagos House, Marina.

Sanwo-Olu is a visitor to the university.

The former Vice-Chancellor of University of Lagos (UNILAG) Akoka, Prof Rahaman Bello is the Chairman of the panel, and the Director of Inspection in the Monitoring Department in the Office of Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Yemisi Omoloye, is the Secretary while Prof Dipo Kolawole, Prof. Ebunoluwa Adejuyigbe, Prof. Joseph Ajienka, Ayorinde Ogunruku, Lawal Pedro, Ibrahim Aponmade, Akinwale Ayodeji, and Kalejaiye Adeboye, as other members.

The Head of Public Affairs Unit in the Office of Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Adesoye Oyelami confirmed the inauguration and composition of the panel to saying the office at that moment was “working on the official statement” to that effect but yet to send it till the of filling the report.

However, the Special Adviser on Education to the Governor, Tokunbo Wahab, whose office oversees tertiary institutions owned by the state government had told newsmen that the governor would soon send a visitation panel to LASU and the exercise is not to witch-hunt anyone but to improve service delivery.

Reacting to his appointment, the former UNILAG Vice-Chancellor, Prof Rahaman Bello, in an interview said sending visitation panels by visitors either to federal or state universities is a normal thing in the university system.

He said the exercise was part of quality controls and he believed this development would help LASU to move to the next level.

He said though the assignment covers 12 years instead of five- years normal schedule for the visitation panel, it is a way forward for LASU to start sending visitation panels by the visitor to the university five years interval.

“So, it is an assignment that has to be done,” he stressed.

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has scored Ahmadu Bello University Distance Learning Center as the best in Nigeria.

NUC conducted a Quality Assurance Assessment Visit to Nigerian university distance learning centres. Eight among the centres were rated “Very Viable” with a percentage score of at least 80% as follows:

Ahmadu Bello University Distance Learning Center- 94.9%

University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute- 93.1%

University of Ibadan Distance Learning Center- 93.0%

Joseph Ayo Babalola University Center for Distance Learning- 92.7%

Lagos State University Open and Distance Learning and Research Institute- 89%

Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Open and Distance Learning Center- 88.7%

University of Nigeria Nsukka Center for Distance and e-Learning- 85%

Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola Center for Distance Learning- 83.5%

University of Maiduguri and Obafemi Awolowo University were both rated “Viable”, scoring 78.1% and 75.3%, respectively.

University of Abuja Center for Distance Learning and Continuing Education was rated “Not Viable”, with a score of 50.3%.

There are only 12 approved distance learning centres across the country, as obtained from the NUC website.

The 12th accredited program is the Federal University of Technology Minna Center for Open Distance and e-Learning.

Nigerian universities established distance learning centres to obtain degrees from NUC-approved universities without a physical presence on campus. Due to flexibility, the programmes are gaining more acceptability over the years by students who might be inconvenient to be in physical contact with the schools.

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, has said the Federal Ministry of Finance and National Planning will commence the disbursement of funds to universities on Wednesday.

The minister said the government is certain that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will not embark on the planned strike.

He stated this when he appeared on “Politics Today,” a political programme on Channels Television on Tuesday.

Victor Osodeke, the President of ASUU, on Monday, said the union will embark on another industrial action if the government continued to renege on the 2020 agreement.

The union had accused the federal government of failing to implement the agreement after it called off its nine-month-old strike in December 2020.

Mr Ngige said the government had already fulfilled the payment of the first tranche in January and was about to pay another N22.72 billion earned allowances.

He said the N30 billion revitalisation fund is already in the account of the National University Commission and ready for disbursement to the schools.

“What was agreed last year has been paid. These are subsequent payments that are due. That one has been paid in January February. This is the second tranche we are paying, N22.72 billion for this tranche. The N30 billion for revitalisation is also in the CBN account.”

He said the union is yet to inform his ministry of the planned strike even though he confirmed that he watched the press briefing where ASUU issued the ultimatum.

“Up till now, I have not gotten any communication from them. But that is not to say that I have not seen them addressing press conferences that they have issued an ultimatum. One of the mandates of the ministry is to stem industrial dispute,” he said.

Mr Ngige also downplayed the state of the government own schools, saying “It is not the way it is being painted. I have my children in some of the schools. One of them recently graduated.”

The minister lamented the level of funding of universities, arguing that funding cannot be left in the hands of the government alone. He said in his days as a student, education was not free for all the students.

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Chris Ngige. [PHOTO CREDIT: @NGYouths4Change]
Chris Ngige. [PHOTO CREDIT: @NGYouths4Change]

ASUU strike: FG to disburse N22.72 billion to universities on Wednesday — Ngige
ASUU on Monday announced its plan to embark on another strike in three weeks if the federal government continued to renege on the 2020 agreement with it.
ByBakare Majeed  November 17, 2021 2 min read

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, says the Federal Ministry of Finance and National Planning will commence the disbursement of funds to universities on Wednesday.

The minister said the government is certain that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will not embark on the planned strike.

He stated this when he appeared on a political programme on Channels Television on Tuesday.

President of ASUU, Victor Osodeke on Monday has said the union will embark on another industrial action if the government continued to renege on the 2020 agreement.

The union accused the federal government of failing to implement the agreement after it called off its nine-month-old strike in December 2020.

Ngige said the government had already fulfilled the payment of the first tranche in January and was about to pay another N22.72 billion earned allowances.

He said the N30 billion revitalisation fund is already in the account of the National University Commission and ready for disbursement to the schools.

“What was agreed last year has been paid. These are subsequent payments that are due. That one has been paid in January February. This is the second tranche we are paying, N22.72 billion for this tranche. The N30 billion for revitalisation is also in the CBN account.”

He said the union is yet to inform his ministry of the planned strike even though he confirmed that he watched the press briefing where ASUU issued the ultimatum.

“Up till now, I have not gotten any communication from them. But that is not to say that I have not seen them addressing press conferences that they have issued an ultimatum. One of the mandates of the ministry is to stem industrial dispute,” he said.

Ngige also downplayed the state of the government own schools, saying “It is not the way it is being painted. I have my children in some of the schools. One of them recently graduated.”

The minister lamented the level of funding of universities, arguing that funding cannot be left in the hands of the government alone. He said in his days as a student, education was not free for all the students.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives on Tuesday resolved to intervene to avert another strike by ASUU.

The resolution was sequel to a motion by Julius Ihonvbere (APC, Edo).

Also, the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabimaila, called for a meeting to take place at 2pm with the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed and the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.

The National Mathematical Centre (NMC) has trained no fewer than 50 postgraduate students on geostatistics, to enhance national planning for effective development.

Director/Chief Executive, NMC, Prof. Promise Mebine disclosed this in an interview on Monday.

Represented by Prof. Funmilayo Saporo, Coordinator of Statistics at the Centre, Mebine said that the training would help statisticians to address challenges in the area of spatial statistics.

He said that the Centre had a five-day zoom meeting, which targeted graduate assistants, master’s students and master’s degree holders from universities and other interested lecturers in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

The training, he explained, aimed at exposing young Nigerian scientists’ and researchers to the knowledge of geostatistics in their research work.

According to him, geostatisrics is statistics applied in space and time; it is not like ordinary statistics applied only in locations.

“The training is intended to expose Nigerian scientists to this field because in Nigeria, geostatistics or spatial statistics is not in the syllabus of the National University Commission (NUC).

“So, with this now they will be exposed and they will have greater capability in analysing data that presents itself in that form.

He, therefore, advised Nigerian students to take their work seriously and try their best to always overcome challenges instead of being complacent.

The director, however, identified lack of funds as one of the challenges militating against the centre’s activities, saying that if the centre had enough funds allocated to it, it will carry out its activities more efficiently.

Also speaking, Prof. Audu Isah, Department of Statistics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, said that “Foundation Postgraduate course on geostatistics’’ was designed to acquaint statisticians with the area of spatial statistics.

Isah, who was also the resource person for the programme, further explained that geostatistics could be useful in the area of estimation and prediction.

“Sometimes, we may have scarcity of information; it may become difficult to go to each point to gather information, so information is scarce.

“Then, what we do is to get information from whatever point we can and we use that information to predict what may be happening at other locations that we cannot visit considering special dependence.

“This special area applies virtually in every field of life, you can use it even in econometrics, accounting, pollution and any other field one can think of,’’ he said.

Isah noted that “spatial statistics is an area that is about dying in Nigerian universities.

“So this course will open the eyes of many of our graduates of statistics that want to go into spatial statistics, particularly geostatistics which is an aspect of spatial statistics.

“The programme is designed for graduates from Nigerian universities and polytechnics, who may be interested in further studies.

“It is designed in such a way that participants will gain the basic foundation for further research and studies in geostatistics.

“And those that will be interested in carrying out research will actually be aided by this course,’’ he added.