All is not well with the Post-graduate College of the Obafemi Awolowo University ( OAU ) in Ile-Ife, Osun State. Students have accused the leadership of exploitation and sharp practices in the running of its programmes. The school denies the allegations, saying no student is exploited. HANNAH OJO reports.
The last two months have been a period of bickering and arguments between post-graduate students of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State and the leadership of the School of Post-graduate Studies. There have been allegations of fraud and corruption.
The lid was blown off the scandal by a September publication of an online newspaper, where students accused the Post-graduate School management of systemic sharp practices. The students also cited delay of results and high fees, among other malpractices smearing the credibility of the school.
In their complaint letter dated September 21, 2017, copy of which is made available to The Nation, the post-graduate students maintained that OAU offers “the most expensive” programmes among Federal Government-owned varsities.
The letter reads: “This to us is a deviation from the founding principles and philosophy of being the centre of excellence in providing functional, qualitative and affordable education in the country.”
Chief among other complaints is that, post-graduate students are required to continue paying fees until the leadership of the Post-graduate College decides on their results. The students complained that they had no power to decide when members of the Post-graduate school leadership meet.
In a list made available to The Nation, a breakdown of fees students are required to pay after oral defence include tuition, bench fee, library level, registration, internal and external examination fees, amongst others. In protest, the students called for immediate cancelation of payment of fees after final oral examination.
Since the school management increased the post-graduate fees in 2013, some students, who spoke to our reporter in confidence, noted that nothing has changed in the quality of post-graduate education in the school. They said students still use old laboratories and equipment for practical exercises.
Silencing voices of dissent
For fear of being victimised, most of the post-graduate students are afraid to speak against what they called “strange development” in the school.
A student, who recently completed Master’s degree at the Faculty of Social Sciences, told The Nation that nobody in the management could explain to them why payment of fees is extended to after the day of oral examination. He said students shouldn’t be made to pay extra fee since the processes involving the approval of results by the school Senate are administrative issues beyond the control of students.
He said: “In a sane clime, graduate schools try to provide institutional support to students. In OAU, the postgraduate programme is watery and exploitative. Students do not get any form of support whatsoever. Again, students are made to pay over what they are required to pay for the whole length of the programme.
“If the essence of postgraduate education is to train the highest level of manpower to enhance national development and scholarship, what is going on in OAU is far from the norm. The school is fast turning to an academic community consisting of a significant number of largely lethargic academics who are less interested in quality research, and a money-conscious postgraduate college. The combination is a terrible quality of graduate education.”
Another alumnus of the Post-graduate School, who simply gave her name as Dorcas, said exploitation was becoming normal in departments, especially during seminars. She added that delay in result processing and administrative bottleneck are other problems students face in the graduate school.
Since the post-graduate students’ agitation started, there have been series of demands made to the school authorities by the leaders of graduate students’ group. For raising the issue of their colleagues’ welfare, four students’ leaders recently had their programmes terminated while they were sent on suspension by management.
The affected students’ leaders are Kingsley Ogunne, Gbenga Martins, Dare Egunjobi and Gideon Adeyemi.
The sustained agitation for openness by students led to the negotiations between the Post-graduate College’s leadership and students’ leaders. During a meeting held on October 26, which was attended by Provost of the Post-graduate College, a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and some top officers of the graduate school, some resolutions were agreed on.
Part of the resolutions called for the removal of payment for items that are no longer rendered after oral examination. But, there is a clause that may delay the agreements being implemented, as it was learnt that the Provost, Prof Gbenga Alebiowu, maintained during the meeting that it is only the Board of the Post-graduate College that could make such decision.
Also, agreement on reversal to installmental payment was reached on condition that students would be required to complete the payment process before oral defence. The meeting also reached an agreement to stop payment for papers, projectors, fuel and other laboratory equipment.
However, it is not Uhuru yet for the students, because all agreements reached were premised on the willingness of the college board to implement. The provost, it was learnt, also affirmed that the board would not agree to the decisions until the Post-graduate students write a letter of apology.
Arbitrary fees regime
In the last three years, allocation to OAU from the Federal Government is between N9 billion and N10 billion. A chunk of this amount goes into payment of salaries and wages, while the rest goes into other core activities, such as teaching, laboratory exercise and curriculum development.
In 2017, the total allocation to OAU was put at N10.294 billion. Of this amount, the school paid N8.632 billion in salaries and wages, while N45.445 billion was expended on direct teaching and laboratory cost.
In a policy paper on the 2017 Federal Government’s education budget, BudgIT, a civic society organisation reveal that approximately 83 per cent of allocation to the Federal Ministry of Education would go into the settlement of salaries and emolument of workers under the supervision of the ministry.
With the inadequate budgetary allocation to tertiary education, Federal Government-owned schools, such as OAU, are required to devise means of generating more funding, which often results to increment in fees arbitrarily and other exploitative charges meted to students. The payment of fees after oral defense by OAU Master’s students stands as a case study.
According to information available on the university’s website, Post-graduate Studies and research started in OAU in 1964. Presently, the university has a Post-graduate enrollment of approximately 2,500 applicants and offers postgraduate programme in all faculties.
With OAU post-graduate programmes being smeared by delays and prolonged periods, it is believed that the university needs a revamp of its graduate programmes to meet the demand of producing highly-skilled students that will proffer solutions to modern challenges.
For a university, which prides itself as a school of first-choice in learning and culture, the unsavoury stories emanating from the campus may prove to be great disservice to its reputation.
OAU: Allegations baseless
In a telephone conversation with our reporter, the school Public Relations Officer, Mr Olanrewaju Abiodun, refuted the claims of corruption and exploitation in the school, describing the allegation “baseless”. Contrary to the claims of the Post-graduate students, OAU, according to its spokesman, is the least expensive for Post-graduate studies.
He said: “We usually place out advertisement in newspapers and on our website. OAU is not the only university that does that, our students pay one of the least fees in Nigerian universities. We do this in order to encourage scholarship and appreciation of knowledge.”
Olanrewaju said students enrolled for Post-graduate programmes should not expect the school to spoon-feed them.
“All our programmes are syllabus-oriented and the quality of our syllabus is of international standard. It is only if students do not have the intellectual ability to match the quality on ground. Anyone who is intellectually lazy may not be able to cope in OAU,” he said.
On allegation of exploitation, Olanrewaju said the school expected no students to pay any fee after oral defence. He added that many of the Post-graduate students usually do not wait to get clearance after submitting their theses.
He said: “The thing is that, most of our students just take off immediately after finishing their theses even without getting clearance to do so. Sometimes, they take off for two months and the moment the board of the Post-graduate school has not considered their results, they are not graduates. The purpose of the defense is to sit before a panel and get corrected. Until the correction is done, no student is allowed to graduate.”
- Reporting done as part of 2017 BudgIT media fellowship.
