What makes a standard university?

PLAYING politics with the education and by extension the future and hope of the country - the youth - is definitely anything but the ideal. They constitute the pivot of any society willing and aspiring to develop. Curiously, to some public officials, and remotely some misguided politicians, this oft-repeated claim about a future generation is another broken chord.

There is no denying the fact that the Federal Government has consistently been sending beneficiaries of federal scholarships overseas to study - Cuba, China, Japan, Morocco, Turkey, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, Russia and Algeria, among other places. It is then a surprise when the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission, Professor Julius Amioba Okojie, attacked the Osun State government for sending some stranded medical students of the state university, UNIOSUN, to Ukraine to complete their studies. Okojie went as far as referring to the host university in Ukraine as substandard.

The Osun State government magnanimously approved 98 medical students of the University of Osun, Osogbo, who were long overdue for their clinical course to complete their studies abroad on the bill of the state government. This was due to the non-availability of a teaching hospital for the university (it was yet to take off), contrary to the insinuation by apologists of rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that Osun State University Teaching Hospital had been cancelled. In fact, UNIOSUN had no teaching hospital. A unique feature of the scholarship is that it covered both indigenes and non-indigenes of Osun with beneficiaries from other states of the federation including Anambra, Oyo, Kogi, Edo, Lagos, Ogun, Ekiti and Ondo.

The state government had proposed to upgrade the state hospital at Asubiaro, Osogbo, to a teaching hospital. The rationale is that if over N1.5 billion was spent to ensure the accreditation of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Teaching Hospital jointly owned by Oyo and Osun states in 2000/2001, the Osun State government would have had to spend no less than N5 billion to upgrade the state hospital to a functional and standard teaching hospital for clinical purposes to get the required accreditation. Personnel will no doubt pose a great challenge as well. It took the pioneer medical students of LAUTECH 10 years to graduate, owing to accreditation challenges.

It is, therefore, laughable for party apologists to think that N850 million will package a teaching hospital and secure accreditation from the NUC. It is unfortunate that the medical students of UNIOSUN were stagnated for about two years as a result of non-availability of a teaching hospital for the university. All efforts made to get them admitted to recognised institutions like Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, University of Ibadan (UI), University of Lagos (UNILAG), Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), for their clinical courses had failed. Then, a way had to be devised out of the quagmire and save the situation for the medical students.

In order not to jeopardise the students’ lives, the most reasonable option open to the Rauf Aregbesola administration was the overseas study alternative. The noble-minded progressive government decided to place all those due for clinical courses, that is, all 300 to 500 level medical students, on scholarship to complete their medical study in the prestigious V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine. This policy initiative was reported over and over by both the electronic and print media. It was a public knowledge that the scholarship will cost the state government N146 million and not N600 million falsely and maliciously peddled by the PDP.

The state government was very transparent about this matter. A total of $7,000 is to be expended on each of the concerned students. This would cover tuition fees, return air tickets and other logistics. The parents of the students would only take care of their wards’ upkeep while undergoing the courses.

Clearly, the NUC Executive Secretary, Professor Okojie, misfired by referring to V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University as a substandard university. For a man who is in charge of granting licenses regularly to many substandard universities locally, this is a very interesting charge. If only it were true. [b]Instructively, the university in question is one of the oldest and most famous institutions in the entire Central and Eastern Europe. It was founded in November 1804 and today remains one of the largest research centres in Ukraine. It covers virtually all spheres of modern fundamental research and incorporates the Research Institutes of Chemistry, Biology, and Astronomy, the Institute of Physics and Engineering, and the Institute of High Technologies. The Karazin Kharkiv National University School of Medicine currently has about 200 students on English Language training.

It is the only university in Ukraine that has trained and employed three Nobel laureates. How many of the universities that Okojie superintends have produced Nobel laureates? The university has produced Nobel laureates in medical biology, economics and physics. No single African country has produced a Nobel laureate in biology, economics or physics. Nigeria, with 160 million population, has only produced one Nobel laureate in Literature! [/b]Okojie’s “substandard” university has graduated over 130,000 students and has several times been named the best university among the over 800 degree-awarding institutions in Ukraine. The latest webometric university ranking placed Karazin Kharkiv National University among the best 1,500 universities in the world. Not one of the universities under Okojie’s supervision is on the list of the best 2,000 universities in the world. The University of Benin that led other Nigerian universities was ranked 2,485th in the world. Yet, Okojie says that Nigerian universities are better than the ones in Ukraine.

It is unfortunate that Okojie, a professor of forestry, who has been at the helm of affairs at the Universities Commission for seven years, has not achieved the feat of moving any Nigerian university into the list of the best 2,000 in the world. Yet, he was comfortable to make such derogatory remarks about the effort of the Osun government to secure the future of these innocent young ones, a gesture that has attracted the commendation of the residents of Osun State, particularly the parents of the affected students.

President of the UNIOSUN Medical Students, Samuel Oluwatimileyin Owoeye, in a media interview recently expressed profound gratitude to the state government for the kind gesture thus: “We also thank Governor Rauf Aregbesola for making sure that our future is still secured and our dream of becoming trained medical doctors is realistic. None of us, (the 98 medical students) will ever forget Governor Aregbesola.” Professor Okojie can do without putting politics above the interest of the nation and the future of the youth. We should commend Aregbesola for not allowing sentiments to come to play in this great gesture by the state.

• Omowaiye, an IT consultant, wrote from Osogbo.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102555:omowaiye-what-makes-a-standard-university&catid=38:columnists&Itemid=615

How come a University medical course was accredited without a teaching hospital, or am I getting some things wrong here?

^^^Most schools run their programs before attempting to get them accredited. It is practically imposibble to get a program accredited without taking off first.