OAU good in the conduct of research – VC
The Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, in this interview explains the pluses and minuses of public universities. Most parents today prefer private universities for their wards. Do you envisage that the private universities might overtake their public counterparts? We are aware of the fact that the private universities are […]
The Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, in this interview explains the pluses and minuses of public universities.
Most parents today prefer private universities for their wards. Do you envisage that the private universities might overtake their public counterparts?
We are aware of the fact that the private universities are coming up even in terms of ranking but as of today, the public universities are still better. At the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, we are conscious of the trend and we know that some private universities want to go up in terms of hierarchy. We are leveraging on our potentials to remain at the top. For instance, while there are certain private universities with less than five professors, we have over 400 professors here in OAU and also in terms of research, for a private university to catch up with public universities like OAU, it will take a very long time.
We are also imbibing the global best practices so as to retain our standards. As part of efforts to remain relevant, we are reviewing the entire curriculum in the university to ensure that we produce very quality graduates that would not just be job seekers when they finished from here but be employers of labour. According to the National Universities Commission ranking, OAU is the number one research institution in Nigeria. So, no private university can come near us for now.
Strict rules are imposed on students in private universities to ensure moderation on their campuses. Could public universities also enforce such rules particularly on dressing, restriction of movement and compulsory participation in religious activities?
University undergraduates are supposed to be matured to some extent even before securing admission into a university. Before I got admission into university, I was a secondary school teacher for two years. It was not because I was not qualified for university admission when I finished secondary school but my father insisted that I needed experience. He said my son; you need to be mature enough before you to go to university. My father said there is no hurry in going to a university. He persuaded me to understand his point. He said you are qualified, you are good, you are okay but go and have this experience so you can go to the university as a mature person and that was why I stayed home for two years as a teacher before going to the university.
After the two years of experience as a teacher, my father said you are okay now; you can go to the university. Today, I have no regret over his decision then. The fact that you are not in a university when you are qualified to be there has not removed anything from you. It is good to earn some experience after secondary school before going to university. But nowadays, you will see parents who want their children to get admission to the university even before completing the secondary school.
There must be age limit. Immature candidates, like 16-year-olds should not be admitted into the university. If the undergraduate is old enough to be in the university, you will not need to impose strict rules on him because he knows the right and the wrong thing already.
In this university, we do not have that kind of strict rules. Our students are mature individuals. They could coordinate themselves. Therefore, why do we need to restrict their movement? Why should you ban undergraduates from using phones in the hostel? If we don’t allow the undergraduate to be independent minded and do things on their own, I don’t think we are going to train people who are going to stand on their own when they graduate from the university.
What we should do in the university is to ensure that they behave well, make sure that they can stand on their own, they can look at anybody in the face and say; this is what is right. Those are the kind of students that we want to train. That is the difference with a private university.
A university undergraduate should not be taken as a secondary school student. Those rules are meant for secondary school students. But in a university, people should be free to think, to challenge, to query. That is the way you can develop people who are intellectually sound, who will be able to contribute to the society. So, that is what we do here in Ife and that is why we have our ‘products’ all over the place making waves and I as vice chancellor, would not want to truncate that kind of tradition.
What are you doing to address students’ accommodation problem?
There is no university in Nigeria that has the number of hostels that we have in OAU, but we still have challenges because of the population of our students. OAU has over 35,000 students and the hostels are overpopulated. From next session, we shall reduce the number of students in the hostels. We have an arrangement with some developers to build hostels; they will operate it for 25 years and transfer to us later. Those private hostels are available now.
Universities are supposed to proffer solutions to problems through researches and other efforts. In concrete terms, what is OAU doing in this aspect?
We are doing many things but let me tell you one. We are working on a modern integrated agricultural project with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Bank of Nigeria that will enable the university to be the number one in terms of practical agricultural engagements in Nigeria.
I must commend the council of this university led by Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi on this project which has already been endorsed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. Through the initiative, there is going to be over N3 billion farm projects here in OAU and the immediate communities will also benefit from it greatly.