Ajimobi tasks university on socio-economic development

The Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi has tasked the management of the University of Ibadan (UI) not to limit its activities to impartation of knowledge, but to expand such towards the socio-economic development of its immediate community, the State.

Ajimobi pointed out that without any prompting, the university should have a blueprint on the socio-economic development of the State, which should be handed to the governor.

He spoke at the official opening of the University of Ibadan Distance Learning Centre Complex at Ajibode-in the state capital.

In his address, the Vice-Chancellor of the Institution, Isaac Adewole said the institution had a target of 100,000 students for its various courses and programmes at the centre

Adewole, who said that the institution’s target was to provide access to university education to as many as possible disclosed that at present it had 13,000 post-graduate students and 13,000 undergraduate students, adding, “we are targeting 16,000 distance learning students now and looking forward to a 100,000 students for our various programmes.

“All these we are doing to provide access to qualitative adult and university education”, he said.

Pro-Chancellor of the institution, Umar Mustapha described the inauguration of the project as a sign of many positive things that would happen to the university during his tenure.

“It is worthy of note that what we are witnessing today, by the opening of this edifice, translates into a further solution to the perennial problem of access to quality higher education in our nation.

Mustapha said that the DLC, since its emergence from the Adult Education had introduced several other courses through the open-distance learning and had registered 16,000 students in the various courses.

“The DLC also plans to add more to these facilities in the future to accommodate the DLC Corporate Head Office and a 2000-seat capacity lecture theatre”.