VC Defends First Class Graduates Produced By Babcock Varsity

OGUN

The vice chancellor of Babcock University (BU), Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State, Professor Ademola Tayo, has defended First Class graduates produced by the 23-year-old institution and other private universities in the country.

The VC also faulted the recent description of private universities as ‘quacks and irrelevant’ by the president ofAcademic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Emmanuel Osodeke.

Tayo, who spoke at a media briefing to announce the activities for the 2022 Founder’s Day, said First Class products of the university are doing the nation and the institution proud in Nigeria and abroad with their sterling performance in different fields.

His words: “The true test of a university is their products. If BU is quack, we will not have our students topping numerous courses abroad. In the current ranking by the National Universities Commission (NUC), BU is among the first 10universities.

“In the last three years, we have produced the overall best graduating Law student at the Law School. Some years back, the best in Accounting and Law were our students.”

Tayo explained that ASUU president got it wrong by describing private universities as quacks and irrelevant’. He said Prof. Osodeke can not substantiate his claim with any fact.

The VC said BU doesn’t award First Class to students but that they earn it through hard work, adding, “in their final year, we have external examiners and some are from public universities to assess them.”

Tayo revealed that BU has the highest admission quota among private universities and matriculated 3, 511 new students in 2021, which is the highest by any private universities.

According to him, to accommodate more students, the university expanded it facilities and has written to relevant regulatory bodies such as Legal Council on Education, Nursing and Midwife Council of Nigeria and Dental and Medical Council of Nigeria to increase the admission quota of students.

He confirmed that NUC resource verification team visited BU two weeks ago to assess new courses in Faculties of Engineering and Environmental Science.

The VC further revealed that NUC has accredited the 40 programmes of BU and also recently the commission granted approval for the university to run Open and Distance Learning. Tayo said BU has maintained stable academic calendar in the last 23 years, which made the university one of the most sought after private universities in the country.

He explained that the university would use the Founder’s Day to thank God on the successes recorded in the past three years and 23 years of the existence of BU, which has lead to an increased students population of 12,000.

The VC disclosed that BU lecturers won several grants in different fields and has linkages with Nigeria and foreign universities as well as exchange programmes for students.