Professor Ayodeji Agboola is the vice chancellor of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State. In this interview conducted by LAOLU HAROLDS, in the buildup to the institution’s 34th convocation ceremonies, he speaks on some of his achievements and challenges in the last two and a half years he has been in the saddle, as well as his thoughts on some issues in the education sector.
Can you share with us some of the highlights of your administration, by way of achievements?
First, we need to thank God; because that’s where the inspiration comes from. The last two and a half years have been very challenging. But it’s been very encouraging ]as well. When we started October 2022, we needed to have a plan; because somebody who has not planned is getting ready to fail. So, we instituted a strategic plan. We believe that the university should be able to continue to forge ahead after my exit; so we instituted a 10-year strategic plan for the university. And we’ve been able to carry out some of those works that we put in it. I’ll just highlight some of them.
The first thing was to be able to normalize the calendar. We were just coming from a strike that had lasted about seven, eight months; everywhere was comatose. So I told myself the first thing was to normalize the calendar and then reduce those things that can cause crisis within the system. We have been able to do that; in the last two years, with the support of the staff. There was a time we even finished on Friday and we resumed another session on Monday.
The following year, we also had a break for 10 days and then resumed again. With that we were able to normalise the calendar. Now we are in ‘October rush’ (October to June); by February, they’ll be starting the Harmattan (semester) and by June we’ll end the session. So, we’ve normalized the calendar.
We’ve also made sure that in the last two years, we have paid salary as at when due; we’re not owing anybody. By 25th of every month, salary has to go to the bank to ensure that workers are happy. As we speak, we have concluded the 2024 promotion exercise for all categories of staff.
Again, when we look at the quality of students, we try as much as possible to ensure that what they need to go to the society and perform better, we foresee it here and start that process immediately. So, we strengthened our SIWES (Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme) very well. We were able to meet virtually all the companies around us here. We signed an MOU with Nestle. Now, our students are able to go to Nestle and do their internship there with ease.
We’ve been able to expose these students in a way that they can work anywhere in the world. We’ve gone to Swansea to sign an MOU with the University of Swansea on dual degree for our students, joint conferences, joint publications. We’re doing curriculum matching now, such a way that all our students will be able to get Swansea degree and get OOU degree. Likewise for Forensic Science. We are also doing that with the University of Lancaster, so that our students can also have that opportunity. Apart from that, we’ve tried as much as possible in the last two years to bring experts to come an retrain our staff in terms of how to attract grants. And we’re happy we have been able to attract as many (grants) as possible. One of them (lecturers) just won a $60,000 grant. There is a lot of improvement going on in terms of research, and in terms of infrastructure, we’ve been seeing new developments that people now have confidence in this university. People are cooperating to do one of two things for us. The Ogun State indigenes that reside in Dallas also gave us a commitment that they’re going to come and build an international office for us. Anytime from now they are going to start. A lot of the alumni are also trying their best. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that the university is going to be great.
Again, we are not doing badly in terms of circular economy. We produce everything we use here. We’re also trying to improve the academic base that we have. We have introduced about 20 (new programmes) in the last two and a half years in order to complement what we have, and we work assiduously to ensure that all our programmes have full accreditation as at today.
Have there been some dark clouds along the way? Do you want to share with us those challenges or difficult moments you’ve had?
Anywhere you have human resources, you’re bound to have challenges. They’re not robots or machines. The first one I can say had to do with students’ crisis – not by our students themselves but by people that came from outside saying that they wanted to help fight for our students. I’ve never experienced that kind of intervention before – where the students themselves are peaceful and then some people will come from outside and say ‘oh, I want to help you fight for your rights’, and then it’s the same set of students that will be facing them to send them away, saying ‘we don’t need you’. Before you knew it, it caused a lot of crisis here. It took a lot of wisdom to be able to manage that crisis within those three or four days. That was the first one I ever had. The second one is something virtually everyone encounters, and that has to do with the issue of transport. Transportation is a bid problem everywhere, and you can see that majority of our students stay outside the campus and they have to come to school; so they are being exploited and it got to a peak that I was thinking of having our own transport system to solve the problem for them. But along the line, we were able to resolve the crisis. For the staff, they want to get more money, and the money is not really there; so we need to sit down together, agree on how to pay; so we had a schedule of how to pay those arrears – and I’m committed to it and we are paying.
How far has OOU been affected by the infamous Japa syndrome? How many of your staff have you lost to it so far?
We’ve had our own share of the japa syndrome. I can say about 20 to 40 percent of staff is affected by the japa syndrome, but we’re using technology to solve a lot of these problems, trying to put some of the work on IT. We also try as much as possible to introduce online lectures, in such a way that our adjuncts (adjunct staff) can teach (from) anywhere in the world. Though it stresses us a bit, we are able to solve a lot of problems.
The proliferation of first class honors has today become more or less a sort of rat race among universities – at least, that’s the impression created out there. OOU is going to award 115 such honors during this convocation, and you’re looking to increase it further going forward. How do you respond to that insinuation?
I don’t believe that the award of first class honors is a rat race; it’s a product of the performance of the students themselves. It’s also a product of the kind of admission that we’re having these days. I give kudos to the senate of this university. I cannot speak for other universities, but I can speak for my own. The senate of the university admits students, and they’ve made it more stringent, and that also enhances the performance of those students. You can only make use of good tools that you have to produce anything. If the raw material you have to produce a product is weak or poor, you can’t get better results from there. This admission exercise that we have been doing in the last four or five years, Professor Oloyede has made it better off by insisting on merit; and the senate of the university is also making it better off. The reason I said I foresee that it’s (number of first class honors) going to increase is because in the last two years, virtually all the admissions I’ve done have been on merit, to the extent that if you don’t get up to 300 you will not be able to read Medicine in this university now. But I’m not bothered about it too much because I’m not actually looking for money at all costs. This year, we have 37,000 students that applied to OOU, and we have a quota of 8,250. You can imagine the kind of students I’m going to take. So, it’s the best 8,250 that actually went in. That’s why I said we’re likely to get more. These are good hands already; you’re not going to do much to take them to that (first class) level. And then again, the NUC asked us to have five databases in our library resource; we have 25. And you know the students of nowadays, it’s more of what they listen to than what they read. So, we are recording all the lectures, such that students can have access to them more than when they are in class. So, they will come to class, get the lecture, listen to it, and when they go home they can still listen to it again. We also try as much as possible to occupy them more than before; we give them more quizzes, assignments, so that at the end of the day, there is no way they can get distracted.
How much of NELFund have your students benefited? Can you give us some figures?
***We started with 33, then the next stage we have 1,580, then the last one was 1,058. So in all we have more than 2,600 students that have already benefited from it.
How much have you received towards this (from NELFUND)?
I know they will pay, because they asked me to confirm 1,580 first – which I did; and they also asked me to confirm 1,032, which I also did. And they’ve already sent me how much I’m going to receive from them. The total money expected from them, the first is 325,435; the second one is N217,945.
The conversation has been on that TETFund might be scrapped for NELFUND. What’s your take on that?
The two can go pari passu, and I don’t think that government would be interested in scrapping TETFund. The role of TETFund is quite different from the role of NELFUND. The principles behind them are not even the same at all. NELFUND is to assist students; there is a loan without interest, to assist students; but TETFund is to assist in the infrastructure as well as capacity building of staff. So, the two are not the same. That’s why I don’t believe that government will scrap TETFund. A government that wants education in this country would not go in that direction. They can only reduce the percentage, but they shouldn’t go in that direction of scrapping TETFund…
Because?
Ah, if you go round this university alone, this building we are in is TETFund; the chair you sit on is TETFund. If you go round this university there are only two structures – apart from the one donated by individual, that’s not TETFund.
Perhaps to play the role of a devil’s advocate, there has been this unrelenting agitation that TETFund intervention should be extended to private universities – and why not? The two percent education tax that set up TETFund is contributed by everyone – including owners of those universities. What’s your take?
I don’t have anything against them (private universities), but all I know is that they play different roles. Public universities are not profit-oriented institutions; whereas private universities are in business…
But their owners have a stake in the education tax that set up TETFund.
What I’m saying is that how can I give you my own tax to go and run your own business? I’m only talking about the principle behind it. Private institutions are set up to make money. Would I now use my own tax to run somebody’s business that wants to earn profit? They are supposed to even pay tax in that place, because they are making profit there. You can never see a public university that makes profit. Can you compare the fees of those institutions to the public ones? The highest fee in this institution (OOU) is N380,000, which is Medicine; whereas their own (private universities) is N6 million (minimum). I don’t mind if government gives their (private universities) students loans, because the students would not suffer to pay back, but for you to deduct my tax and give it to a private person to run his own business?
You had been in the Academic Staff Union of Universities, now you are on the other side (general laughter). How do you think we can we public universities better so that there will be less friction between government and the unions?
It’s difficult to answer that question because I’ve played the two roles, and those two roles are parallel lines. They are not the same at all. My role when I was a chairman of ASUU was to provide for the welfare of staff – and I don’t want to care where the money comes from. I want comfort for my people. I’ve done my own bit; that’s how we look at it as a union. You asked me to go to class, I’ve gone to class; I’ve taught the students, I’ve returned the grades (snaps fingers), where is my money? But as an administrator, I would look at so many things, including your welfare, in the context of what is available. That is why I said the two cannot go together. A way out, as I always say, is for us to be doing educational summits on a regular basis. If we are doing educational summits, all of us will be able to find solutions to these problems. Let me say here that no nation would develop better than the products of its universities. We need to hold educational summit once in a year – where all the managers of education at different levels will be there: call the vice chancellors, provosts of colleges of education, directors; secondary schools as small as they may look to us, the principals of those schools are experienced. They would be able to give you from experience what is causing problems. Then you can bring the unions to come and present their papers, and give you solutions; after all, when we were talking about the problem of funding in universities, ASUU provided the leeway, and that’s the beginning of the TETFund we are talking about today. They can still provide another leeway now. Until we are able to do that, we won’t solve any problem.
Can you give us details of some of the programmes you’ve added since assumption of office, and those in view?
Those we already added are: Forensic Science, Medical Lab Science, Nursing, Taxation. We also introduced Criminology, then we also tried as much as possible to have the full complements of the courses in the Faculty of Environmental Technology; so, we introduced Quantity Surveying, Building Technology, Estate Management and Environmental Studies. We also added Cyber Security, Data Science, Information Technology, Industrial Mathematics; we also introduced Food Technology. Then we also try to expand the existing programmes by way of postgraduate studies. We had 10 postgraduate programmes in. Some of these are Master and PhD in Psychology, Master and PhD in Electrical Engineering, and then Mechanical Engineering; Master and PhD in Cooperative and Rural Development. Then we have Applied Geophysics; we also introduced Educational Management and Planning as part of BSc programmes. This year, we are planning to unbundle Mass Communication. We are also looking at starting BSc Optometry.
Your relationship with the unions has been cordial. Is this a product of prayer (being a pastor), or what would you say is the secret?
I graduated from this university; we know one another. It’s easier for me to discuss with them. It’s what we’ve been doing together. I understand the principles behind negotiation. The union’s principles are the Three C’s: Consult, Consolidate before you Confront. I know the principles, and I consult widely – even my students call me on phone and I listen to them. As for staff, I can tell you that I know 75 percent by their first names. We’ve been together for years, so before it gets to the level of (crisis)…if it’s not personal (because some of them personalize issues), we would have discussed and resolved it.
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