Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Oye- Ekiti, Prof. Kayode Shoremekun, has urged government, education stakeholders and the youths to focus and invest more on research efforts at the tertiary education level. He lamented what he described as dwindling research endeavours by university students particularly at the post graduate level, attributing this to low level of support from the government and private institutions for such efforts.
Prof Shoremekun, who stated that sustainable development and socio-economic growth are only achievable through adequate and continuous research in universities, urged the government and other education stakeholders as well as post graduate students across the nation’s universities to put in more effort in research studies.
The VC made the remarks during the maiden edition of FUOYE’s matriculation ceremony for 292 post graduates students.
He was represented at the occasion by Prof. Babatope Alabadan who doubles as the Chairman, FUOYE Committee of Deans and Dean, Faculty of Engineering, FUOYE.
Other dons and dignitaries of the institutions present at the event included the Dean, FUOYE School of Post Graduate Studies, Prof. Rasaki Ojo Bakare, Olayinja Adeniran Ajayi, Acting Registrar, Deans of Faculties of Agriculture, Sciences, Social Sciences and Arts as well as Dean, Faculty of Arts of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Prof. Gbemisola Adeoti among other university administrators and dons.
In a matriculation address entitled “Common Academic and Administrative Mistakes by Postgraduate Students’, by the VC, he said: “Research is important in the development and productive growth of any nation, those who are ready to invest their time to do thorough research are needed but the profile of research efforts in Africa is relatively low, so the future lines on young researchers which is you, post graduate students.”
Commenting on the developmental strides of the institution, he said: “ln FUOYE, we make certain amount of money as research grants for students. We also take care of the indigent students. We encourage our academics and they are doing very well. Our students have won many international laurels while our lecturers have won several fellowship globally. As for facilities, many of the older universities are envious of our facilities as we have very new ones compared to the obsolete ones,” he said.
Prof Bakare, who hinted that FUOYE was first to start a postgraduate school out of the first nine new universities established by the former Goodluck Jonathan administration, said: “292 students were matriculated today. It is a huge number compared to the age of the university, 47,000 students have shown interest in our school but we couldn’t accommodate all of them. We have 30 departments across five faculties, agric, arts, engineering, sciences and social sciences. The post graduate programmes are 70 programmes for the PGD , Masters and PhD degrees. We are starting the 2019/2020 post graduate academic session by September 1 and we already have its advert on our website. We will also soon put up advertisement for our programmes on the national dailies in a week’s time.”