Lecturers at the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Ondo State, have redefined the type of relationship that should exist between teachers and their students by offering full scholarship to brilliant students. Sunday Aborishade reports this rare gesture.
It is rare to see lecturers reward outstanding students in Nigeria’s higher education sector. Rather, the common thing is to see lecturers embark on strikes to press home their demand for improved welfare package.
But in a delightful departure from the common strike stories, lecturers at the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo in Ondo State, have deemed it fit to encourage the pursuit of excellence in the institution by offering scholarships to brilliant students.
The students, all females, got the scholarship for scoring the highest Gross Performance Average in the examinations they had so far taken in the school.
The lecturers under the aegis of the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, said the scholarship would cover tuition, accommodation, feeding, textbooks and other stationery that the students would need in their final year.
The scholarships were awarded as part of the activities to mark the maiden edition of COEASU week.
Presenting the beneficiaries to the audience during the Teachers‘ Day Celebration in October, the chairman of the college chapter of COEASU, Mr. Smart Olugbeko, said the committee of Deans in the school carried out the task of selecting the students.
He explained that the committee considered, screened and verified the results of all the students in the school that were forwarded to them by their heads of departments.
Olugbeko said only one female student, Miss Opeoluwa Oladoyin, studying Biology in the Nigerian Certificate of Education programme of the school, scored a G.P.A of 4.62.
The COEASU chairman said the report submitted by the committee of deans showed that Oladoyin scored a GPA of 5.00 in Integrated Science; 4.48 in Biology and 4.39 in Education, to emerge the overall best student in the NCE programme.
He also explained that the second female student who is pursuing her degree programme in the Department of Biology Education in the college, Miss Monica Kehinde Akinseye, scored a Cumulative Gross Percentage Average of 4.50 to emerge the overall best student in the degree programme category.
The scholarship award was presented to the two outstanding female students by the Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, who also received the COEASU award of ‘Distinguished Leadership in Education Excellence‘ at an elaborate occasion attended by the Provost of the College, Prof. Adeyemi Idowu, and other top management team of the institution.
Ojerinde congratulated the students and urged them and their other colleagues not to see themselves as second-class students compared to their peers at the universities and polytechnics.
He encouraged them to always study hard to attain the pinnacle of their chosen career.
Speaking with our correspondent after the event, Akinseye said she was able to emerge the overall best student in the degree programme of the school through God‘s kindness and diligence towards her studies.
She said, ”I feel highly delighted today because it is a dream come true. I thank God for celebrating me even before I graduate from the school. I give God all the glory.”
She, however, said the award would further encourage her to study harder in order to maintain the standards so as to emerge the overall best student in her final examination at the college.
The part four student said the scholarship would come as a great relief to her parents because it would enable them to concentrate on her younger ones. She urged her colleagues to always put in their best in whatever they are doing.
For Oladoyin, who emerged the overall best student in the NCE programme, the scholarship award was a special gift from God.
The 22-year-old Part three student said she invited God to the programme when her admission to the school was perfected.
She said, ”I have a determination that I must excel wherever I am so I invited Got to my career when I was admitted to the college. Today He is leading me and I am following Him.”
She said her parents were very glad when she informed them about the scholarship and that they prayed for her.
Speaking on the occasion, the National President of COEASU, Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim, commended the lecturers of the college for initiating the scholarship scheme, which according to him, is worthy of emulation.
He urged lecturers to use the occasion as an opportunity to have a sober reflection and take a stock of their activities on campus since they were employed.
He noted that the performances of lecturers could only be measured through the quality of students that pass through them and therefore urged them to be more dedicated and committed to their work.
Ibrahim said, “As lecturers, if our products do not measure up with international standards, then we have not delivered”
He therefore challenged his members at the Adeyemi College of Education to produce quality graduates who could achieve like Ojerinde, a product of the college.
Olugbeko explained that the union would be responsible for the tuition, accommodation, feeding and other sundry expenses of the two lucky students for a whole academic session.
He said the committee of deans of the institution, using information forwarded to them by the Heads of various departments in the school, compiled the aggregate scores of all the students and came up with the best two.
The COEASU chairman said one of the students was undergoing the Nigerian Certificate of Education programme at the college while the second was pursuing his degree programme at the school.
He said, ”Our union takes interest in merit. Our members want to leave a lasting legacy on our students. That is why we decided to sponsor the education, feeding and accommodation of the two students for a whole academic session.”
Apart from awarding scholarship to students, Olugbeko said the union would build a secretariat within the campus and that the facility would be ready in six months.
He noted that his members had always lived up to the dictate of their calling as professional teachers with the divine mandate of moulding lives and building the nation.
He said, ”Today, we are celebrating our divine mandate to build lives and the success we have made so far in accomplishing this task.”
The union leader noted with concern that Adeyemi College of Education had been awarding the degree of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife for the past three decades while the status of the institution had not been reviewed upward.
He said, ”This static status of the college in spite of the fact that the college has grown in terms of infrastructure and personnel, is a serious disadvantage to us.
“Various governments have made pronouncements as regards the autonomous degree awarding university status of the college, we discovered that this serious issue that affect the future of our college has been politicised,” he added.
He therefore appealed to the Federal Government to expedite action on the proposed upgrading of the college to a university, noting that everybody within and outside the college‘s community was expecting its realisation.
Source:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20101026041946
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