The Governing Council, Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, has appealed to the state government to allow it seek alternative sources of salary funding.
The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, KWASU, Prof. Kpotun Baba made the plea on Friday at the 8th and 9th Combined Convocation Ceremony of the institution.Prof. Baba said that one of the major challenges to the university was its inability to pay staff salaries without resort to loans since the discontinuation of subvention to it by the previous administration.”
The proposals are to make alternative salary funding arrangements which may be less costly to the government and the university,” he said.Baba appealed for the state government’s urgent financial support to realise the initial full accreditation of its programme on aeronautical engineering.”
This course is about the first of its kind in a Nigerian university and could easily bring the university to limelight, but, the problem is that we are acutely short of the right personnel and facilities to bring the programme to the required standard. ”
On its part, the University has been taking advantage of the TETFund overseas training arrangement to produce additional relevant personnel.”However, while we continue to search for alternative funding model for this programme, we solicit governments’ financial support,” he said.
He thanked the state government for the continued assistance to the university, adding that the council and university management would continue to justify the confidence reposed in them.
Earlier in his address, the institution’s Chancellor, Dr Johnson Adewumi said KWASU had not only satisfied some of the indices of a world-class university through teaching, research and community service, but had also established collaboration with renowned world-class institutions.”
Through such collaborations, the university has continued, despite all odds, to improve it’s teaching, learning and research activities to be a reference among universities locally and internationally.
The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Mustapha Akanbi, disclosed that the university had started the Smart City Student Hostel Project consisting of 10 mega hostels, each providing 1,120 bed spaces.
He said that the project would go a long way in solving students’ accommodation problems and facilitating the inculcation of the fast eroding culture of university life in the students.”A major factor that fuels anti-social and immoral acts such as illicit use of drugs, cyber crimes and cultism in universities is the fact that majority of students live off campus.”
This act has denied today’s university student the culture of university life which would have been embedded in him or her.”When students are not within university facilities, it is difficult for the authorities to exercise control or full-fledged guidance over them,” Prof. Akanbi said.
Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara, said work would soon resume in the satellite campuses in Osi and Ilesha Baruba as his administration was committed to invest more in the education to reform the sector.Abdulrahman, who was represented by the Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Mr Senior Suleiman, said his administration would leave no stone unturned in sustaining the tempo of academic and infrastructure development in the institution.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a total of 6,620 graduands consisting of 3,864 for the 2019/2020 session and 2,756 for the 2020/2021 session were awarded degrees at the convocation with 98 receiving First Class Honours degrees.
The best graduating student for the 2019/2020 session was Christiana Abolarin while Olufunmilayo Oyetunde of the Department of Geology was the best graduating student for the 2020/2021 session.
NAN also reports that Oyetunde was offered automatic employment by KWASU management.She however told NAN that she would have to reconsider the employment as she would love to further her education.Oyetunde said that determination and support from her parents contributed to her excellent performance in her studies. (NAN)
