How we are battling to select 6000 out of 25,000 applicants – Unijos VC

The university set up a fact finding committee to determine the cause of the fire incident that engulfed the library complex last October. What are the major findings of the committee? The university set up two committees actually, one was to test the integrity of the building and the second committee was to identify the […]

The university set up a fact finding committee to determine the cause of the fire incident that engulfed the library complex last October. What are the major findings of the committee?

The university set up two committees actually, one was to test the integrity of the building and the second committee was to identify the immediate and remote cause of the fire incident. The committee to identify the cause of the fire submitted a report and from that report we have every reason to believe that the fire originated from a department that was cohabiting with the library, which is the Department of Psychology. There are evidences to prove it. And the immediate cause was traced to an electrical fault in that office. The office was housing a lot of examination materials and you know they are just like fuel when you have this type of incident. 

The other committee tested the integrity of the building and sent in a report that was mixed. Mixed in the sense that some  columns in that building were affected but few, while other columns were intact. In other words, the building can still be rehabilitated for use.

The complex housed the library, two faculties and lecture halls, how have students been coping with lectures and other challenges?

The challenges are enormous, students have another library but the reading space may not be enough to accommodate all the students who may want to be in the library at a given time. The materials we got from either donations or gifts have been stocked in the library at the main campus at Bauchi Road; we have created shelves for those faculties whose learning resources were destroyed, so students are encouraged to visit the library to read. We also have, but very far, another library for medical students at the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH). So for now, the traffic is towards the main campus library. And for lecture spaces, two of our unions have assisted us. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) have two halls and they have given us the two halls which we are using to complement what we have. We are looking at other alternatives too as we have gone back to the old campus around Gangare, where we are using some of the facilities because now only the IJMB students are there, so we have spaces that were not being utilised and some of our programmes are being run from there. We have got space at the students’ village hostel, the old cafeteria is now a lecture hall and so, this is how we have been coping after the disaster.

Some of the management staff agreed to contribute N1m each; has this been done and how much has been realised?

We agreed to contribute a million naira each, directors also agreed to contribute N200,000 each, individual lecturers, outsiders and people of goodwill also contributed both in kind and cash. The last time I called for a statement of account about two months ago, the amount standing to the credit of that account was over N7m both from internal and external contributions. But I want you to know the way the contributions are made, for example, members of management pay their contribution by installment because none of us earns up to a million, including the VC, except if you want to be hungry.

Every month now, money is being deducted from our salaries and remitted to that account. Like this morning we got a donation of N500, 000; it will be credited to that account.

You mentioned that over 25,000 JAMB candidates applied for the university’s 6,000 spaces for the 2016/2017 session. For candidates who score high but are unable to get their course of interest, does the university admit them into other courses? And what is the university doing to improve its facilities; especially for courses that are in high demand to accommodate more students?  

We have an admission criteria and what the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) does now is that they allow you choose only one university and one course, one polytechnic, one Federal College of Education and so on. If a candidate applies for a course, for example medicine, and we are permitted to admit only 80, if that candidate does not meet the admission criteria; we have admission on merit, admission on catchment, and we have admission on educationally less developed states. If a candidate does not meet any of these, then completely he is out no matter what he would have scored. 

Now the dilemma is that some courses are under-subscribed by applicants and these are courses particularly in education. Students do not want to read courses in education, for example for a programme in a full-fledged department you will discover that there was only one applicant. So, it means naturally that department will be closed down. 

For some, if they don’t get their first choice, they may be willing to accept some other courses other than the one they had initially indicated. So we use our own initiative to see where we can possibly place them and where they have the requirements to be registered, but it is difficult because sometimes a candidate who is not admitted into medicine will tell you to give him pharmaceutical science but you will discover that you can only admit 100 students into pharmacy and meanwhile 3,000 students applied for pharmacy as their first choice.

So if you take somebody from medicine, who never wanted to read pharmacy, and place him there, it means you will be taking away somebody whose interest is pharmacy. So this is the dilemma of trying to create a balance. You have to find a place where he is not going to short-change any other person that wanted to read that course and place him there. If he is willing to accept it, fine, if not he will just have to wait for another opportunity. 

And we cannot admit more because quotas are prescribed by the National Universities Commission (NUC), by JAMB and by professional bodies. But it is largely influenced by the facilities they see on ground that can conveniently take a class of that size. So in the midst of our own challenges, it will be difficult and until we have additional facilities for them to say they are increasing our quota and to improve on these facilities to take more students need appropriate funding.

Our major support for infrastructural development is coming from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), so we have to plead with TETFund that this is what we need, apply and if we are lucky and they look at our needs and grant us some amount for facility improvement, then we will still prioritise because you will need to see which ones are more urgent, and remember, the facility improvement should not just be for courses that are in high demand, even those that are not in high demand also need improvement in facilities, it’s just a matter of co-sharing the resources.

Sometime last year there were insinuations that the university suspended one of its female professors based on exam malpractice, can you set the record straight.

Yes, there was an issue of exam misconduct levelled against a staff of the university who also coincidentally was pursuing a higher degree in a different field. 

It was reported to the university senate and the senate investigated the matter and turned in a report. The senate took a decision to suspend the staff first as a student of that course and also as a staff to create an avenue for further investigation. But after the suspension of the staff, the staff went to court and obtained an injunction stopping the university from further investigating the case until after the court would have determined her case. This is where we are.