Behold, Adeleke University, in Osun State, where owner bankrolls students

Posted by admin Headlines Thursday, September 3rd, 2015

From YINKA FABOWALE, Ibadan

“Weird” is probably not the word to describe it. But Adeleke University, a private higher institution in Ede, Osun State, is certainly unusual in more than one respect. Apart from its strange description as a faith-based, even though it was established and is being solely financed by accomplished but silent businessman, albeit staunch Seventh Day Adventist Church faithful, Dr. Adedeji Adeleke, it is also run almost as a sort of charity as Daily Sun learnt that a quarter of the students on enrolment enjoys the scholarships of the proprietor.

Besides, the students are allowed to pay the school fees, which, the authorities boast, rank as one of the lowest among those of private universities in the country in four installments.

Ahead of the graduation of its Alpha (pioneer) class this month, Daily Sun paid a visit to the university’s temporary campus along Ede-Osogbo Road to unravel the factors behind the uniqueness of the university.

The immediate ambience of the temporary campus belies a lofty project in motion, but already with visible signs of success. Consisting of bungalow structures, the site houses expansive lecture theatres, administrative buildings, male and female hostels, two cafeterias (one for students and another for staff), classrooms, laboratories and workshops equipped with modern gadgetry and Information Technology and Communication (ICT), facilities for the training of science and engineering students. In addition is a radio studio for practical training of Mass Communications students.

Dean, College of Science, Prof. Temitope Oyedepo, disclosed: “We have equipment at least for the level of students that we are training. We don’t have postgraduate students, but for the undergraduates we have enough equipment in our lab to train students as required by the National Universities Commission (NUC). Recently, we had our accreditation from the NUC.

“Our facilities were evaluated found adequate and yet we are not resting. We still have a lot of projections, we are hoping to a world-class laboratory that would be able to train students up to Ph.D. Not only that, our laboratories are such that researchers even from outside are able to come in and successfully carry out their projects just as you find in developed countries.

“We also have a Computer Science Department. We have an ICT unit that is trying to make sure we are moving on with the new development in technology. We have a partnership with New Horizon Company that before our students graduate they gain professional certification that will make them not only just rely on their degree, but are able to go into so many other areas of ICT.”

At present, the campus is powered by generators whenever there is power outrage and is supplied water from boreholes when water fails from the water corporation.

However, moves are on to shift the students and the university community to its permanent site, where massive construction works are going on simultaneously on at least 18 buildings. The permanent site, located on 240 hectares of land directly opposite the Federal Polytechnic, Ede, along Osun State Forest Reserve Road at the outskirts of the town is also ICT facilitated, according to Oyedepo:

“Already, we have a permanent site and we are moving there. Even before we are getting there, the campus is already 70 per cent ICT facilitated. So, as it is, we will do our best to make sure that we move and develop along the marginal trend in technology.

“The permanent site is elaborate more than this. Well, it is better seen than described. Even with our present site, some universities when they started did not have what we have on ground now in terms of facilities. We are growing!”

Although barely four year-old, the institution has made some strides, adding three more faculties to the three- Arts; Business/ Social Sciences and Science it started with. These are: Engineering, Law and Health Sciences involving a programme in Public Health, which, perhaps, apart from one or two, no other universities in the country offer at undergraduate level.

The university runs a set of hands-on academic and professional programmes geared towards making students job creators rather than job seekers upon graduation. The Registrar,Venerable Ojo Olusegun, explained: “Our students are exposed to training both within and outside the country.

“For instance, within the next month, our students in Public Health will be going to Melina University for experience training. We also have students from History/International studies Department going to Georgia for exposure. We also look beyond what they will get from industries, especially for our Engineering students.

“The plan is when they get to 200 Level or 300 Level; depending on the course of study they are attached to even local mechanics to be able to get the rudiments of what it means to maintain a vehicle. We also plan to organize and fix them in workshops, civil engineering establishments and so on for them to be able to know the rudiments about the job so that it is not only theory we are talking about, but grooming in the practical sense. So that when they go out and are unable to get white-collar jobs, they might get jobs to supervise construction works. They can also decide to be on their own. They lack nothing with much that they have learnt in the school.”

Assistant Dean, Students Care Services, Dr. Bola Oyerinde, corroborated the registrar’s assertion: “Not only are our students involved in Students Industrial Working Experience Scheme (SIWES). Even as recently as June 10, we held an empowerment programme/job fair. In the Business Administration/Economics Department our students were at the Stock Exchange and they also learnt there. We had leaders of industries come to the campus. It was a campus wide event that was organized specially for the Alpha Class, 400 Level graduating students.

“We had entrepreneurship training seminars, on how to start where you are, do what you can with what you have. Not to leave this school and start looking for employment. After we had the programme throughout the day we exposed them to jobs in different organizations. They got firsthand knowledge of what they would like to do.

“Since we started in 2011, we’ve had at least two times vocational trainings, where we did things like soap-making and they had opportunity to showcase their talents. For years we had ‘AU Got Talent’ and one of the winners for this year has just completed her two weeks break. She could make bags. That is what we are doing so that even after leaving the school they can fend for themselves.”

Although the university allows a students’ association, it prohibits unionism or the idea of students union government in the conventional sense as obtains in public universities. This, Oyerinde explained: “Our students association is devoid of all the things that are promoted by unionism in public institutions- cultism. We still give them autonomy and just guide them.

“We also need to understand the basis for establishment of private universities in Nigeria. The thinking is that private university is to correct those anomalies that are prevailing in public universities. Academic activities and academic session regularly run without interruption, due to break down of law and order or having to close the universities for months and extending the stay of the students.

“The school is a government and the students also want to have their own government and you discover that when that happens there will be problem and crisis. But, thank God the private universities are correcting that.

“Those who came in 2011 are graduating this year. And you find out that there is no extension whatsoever. The whole essence of association is to correct the rot in Nigerian universities. What are we talking about? We are talking about modeling sound industrial relations, whereby dialogue as propounded by International Labour Organization (ILO), is preached and modeled.

“The school has zero tolerance for cultism, drugs abuse, demonstrations, and things like that. We are, as management, approachable to them in the entire institution particularly, in the students’ care services. We have committed qualified people who can communicate very well with the students. They are able to report issues to us and so there is no reason for them to think otherwise because they know we will do our best to see to their interest. In our division our motto is “students’ welfare first”. And all we ever do for them is for their welfare and their own good even when they have to be reprimanded. It is still their welfare that is uppermost in our minds.”

The pioneer president a student of Computer Science, Sola Adebua, said: “When we have complaints, the association’s executive would walk up to the management. We have this parent-child relationship and every time we get our response. They have been very responsive. I could say a lot of the things I had to bring to the management were well responded to. But it depends on some things. We are youths and there are times we could demonstrate youthful exuberance on issues/complaints. The authority may in their judgment turned them down, but really these are few.”

On the students’ exposure to entrepreneurial training: “The first SIWES (Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme) I did in Adeleke University was in Networking Operating Centre in University of Ilorin, the next one was at Expert Engine, a computer-based company. So I had different experience for different fields.

“In my department, I have Hardware Laboratory and Software Laboratory which what I’m taught there is not just theoretical teaching. In the laboratory, we hardly talk, but do more of practical. If I decide to go and look for job, then it will be because I want it and if I don’t get what I intend doing, I then set up on my own.”

But the curious thing about this university is that in spite of all it offers, it is more like a charity organization. Not only is the school fees (about N600,000 per session) one of the cheapest among private universities, students enjoy the privilege of paying in four installments.

More interesting is that about a quarter of the population is on the scholarship of the founder and Pro-Chancellor of the institution, Dr. Adededji Adeleke, after whom it is named, according to the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ibikunle Tijani: “We even provide meals for the students with the limited amount of money they pay as fees. But more importantly.”

The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Oluwole Amusan, explained: “The idea is to help people that are indigent, students who would not be able to have access to education, the less privileged youth like it was said. Even before the university was established, the founder had a non-governmental organization that was funding students and through this he has funded many students in other institutions.

“Instead of just funding students in other institution, he thought why he couldn’t establish his own. If he was catering for students in other institutions in which he might not even have a say on the sort of education the students were exposed to, why not have one of his own and that’s why he decided to set up his own institution to ensure that less privileged people have access to education so as to prepare them for life.

“Moreover, our founder is a man of faith and with his experience in life, he has brought that aspect of life that he’s found very beneficial and wants people to also be exposed to it. In his upbringing, he had been brought up in the way of faith. And he is trying to encourage youths that, as they grow, they grow in all aspects of life.

“He is a Christian. That Christian experience he had over years he wants others to benefit from. In fact, he worships with the Seventh Day Adventist Church and he has seen that the Seventh Day Adventist’s educational philosophy is the best that should be adopted for youths. That is why it is brought on board for Adeleke University.”

Amusan said AU’s first set of students billed to graduate by this month will be a test case of the quality of university education provided by the four-year old institution. He nursed no doubt that they would make impressive mark on the field and as they climbed the social and professional ladder with the tuition and values inculcated in them:

“By the grace of God, with the training that we have given them in all areas of life, I believe they will be role models for their counterparts and colleagues wherever they may go because that is what we have prepared them for.

“The goal is to see it ranking among the top rated universities, not only in Nigeria and the African continent, but also the world stage. That is why our slogan at Adekeke University is; See You at The Top. That’s our mission and that is our

-Sunwp_posts

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