University of Lagos [UNILAG] Vice Chancellor Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe has unveiled plans for graduates of the institution to get certificates in entrepreneurship along with their degree certificates on graduation.
Speaking while presenting the scorecard of his first year in office as Vice-Chancellor, Ogundipe said the institution had designed an elaborate entrepreneurship training for all students throughout their stay, which would begin running from the 2018/2019 academic session once the University Senate gives its nod.
“The University has developed an entrepreneurship training programme that would culminate into a certificate which will be awarded alongside the degree has been developed. The programme would run throughout the sessions and all students are expected to participate. The approval of Senate is being sought for the programme to commence in 2018/2019 Session,” he said.
The Entrepreneurship programme is among the short-term goals, Ogundipe said, his administration would pursue during his tenure, which started November 12, 2017.
Already, the VC said the centre had begun training students and preparing them for competitions.
“The Centre has also fired up the spirit of entrepreneurship by assisting to prepare our students for local and international competitions. The University through the Centre prepared and sponsored some of our students to compete at the Global Management Challenge in Dubai after coming top in the national competition. Another group of students were also sponsored to Facebook competition and came third. The Design Thinking programme that Lufthansa commenced in the University was successful. We have taken over the programme as part of our commitment to promoting problem solving and development of viable businesses in Nigeria. The programme was sponsored with the sum of N70 million by Lufthansa. A total of 30 business prototypes were developed and we are looking to escalate some of the viable ones,” he said.
The entrepreneurship programme also extends to workers of the university, especially in preparation for retirement.
Ogundipe said: “The Centre also began to train staff who are about to retire on urban farming and other activities that can help them sustain themselves after retirement.”
Other short-term goals, the VC said he had begun working on included: increasing research grant, internationalisation (N1.25 billion raised in the last one year), exploitation of alumni support, linkages with businesses and government agencies, expansion of the Distance Learning Institute (DLI), and the establishment of a business school.
As the short term goals are in the works, Ogundipe also said he had activated the medium and long term goals for the institution. They include: entrenching partnership business models, establishing a microfinance bank, modula refinery, attracting online donations to the university through mobile phones, community service and the like.
Regarding expansion of academic programmes, the VC said the institution would introduce a programme in Cyber Security to join the world in finding solutions to the problem.
“We are poised to create new programmes and review existing ones to make them relevant to our present challenges. An example of a proposed new programme is in Cyber Security. We have a strong team working on cyber security and as part of the benefits of their work, the university was recently admitted into the Global Epic, an international group of 21 institutions that work to co-create and adopt world changing solutions to cyber security all over the world. In fact, the National InformationTechnology Development Agency recently signed an MoU with the University on the training of scholars in Master Degree in Cyber Law to strengthen regulation of cyber security in Nigeria. University of Lagos is the first institution in Nigeria to take this bold step to fill the vacuum in cyber law,” he said.
By the time he leaves office, Ogundipe hopes to have achieved his vision “to remodel the University of Lagos as a truly 21st century first class university that is number one in Nigeria and one of the top four in Africa by 2022.”
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