FUNAAB will protect students against sex-for-marks lecturers, says Vice Chancellor

‘Nigeria varsities degrees are of high standard’
Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Professor Kolawole Salako, has said the institution’s management had sacked some lecturers in the past over their indictment for demanding sex from female students for marks.

He assured the students of the institution of support in the event of being abused, saying: “We won’t condone sex-for-marks in this university. If anybody is violated, the violator will not go scot free.”

Also speaking, former Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, debunked claims that Nigerian university degrees were sub-standard.

He insisted that degrees from the country’s universities were comparable with those from universities across the world.

Okojie, who is a former Vice Chancellor of FUNAAB, said this yesterday at a lecture to mark the institution’s 30th anniversary.

In the lecture titled: A Robust Regulatory System: An Imperative For Quality Assurance In Nigerian Universities, Okojie stressed that his experience abroad had proved that most of Nigeria’s scholars ranked higher among their peers globally.

He insisted that most Nigerian scholars he met abroad were exceptional, adding: “Fortunately, they are all products of Nigerian universities.

“During my recent visit abroad to address a gathering, I was lucky to meet a cardiologist, who graduated from the University of Ife. He is doing very well. So, who says our degrees are not doing well?

“Some of our scholars are world class. If the government can bring them back home, our universities will be internationally recognised,” he added.

Okojie also cited the ranking of the University of Ibadan at global ladder, saying hat the university presently stands at around 1,300 out of 29,000 and assured that if government could invest heavily on education, the system would move beyond the mundane to the extraordinary.

“We need to have people of honour and integrity to set a standard for the universities,” he said.