Science students accuse UNILAG of exploitation ---Punch

Aggrieved students of the Faculty of Science, University of Lagos, have accused  the institution of denying them the right to study their preferred courses in order to admit diploma students, who allegedly paid higher tuition.

The students, who were admitted to study dentistry, nursing, pharmacology and medicine,  have  been asked to study courses   such as botany and microbiology.

They accused  the authorities of  introducing new  entry requirements at the point of their  moving to 200 level, despite scoring more than the 50 per cent.

The students, in company with their parents, said this on Tuesday at a briefing in Lagos.While calling on the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders to prevail on UNILAG to reverse its decisions, they also accused  the university  management of deliberately raising  the bar  in order to enrich the school.

One of the students,  who identified himself simply as Bassey, said the university should explain how  diploma students,  who scored 3.0 and 3.5 in their courses,  would be given the go-ahead to proceed to 200 level over students admitted through the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, who scored better grades.

“It is clear. The university prefers students who pay N400,000 per  session to  those of us who pay N55,000 per session. There are more than 500 diploma students and the university rakes in about N200m per session.

 “Is that not enough to upgrade their facilities in order to increase their quota?

 “That is just at the Faculty of Science alone. The university rakes in money in other faculties as well.”

The National Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign, Mr. Hassan Soweto, said the university erred by revising the entry requirements into the College of Medicine.

Soweto said,“Yes, we do not want the facilities to be overstretched because it will affect the quality of education. But it has to be resolved without violating the rights of the students and somebody within the management has to pay for it. This is a clear case of corruption. As it is now, UNILAG will always have more than enough students over and above the quota for the College of Medicine. The students did not fail. The authorities simply decided to manufacture a different entry requirement to weed out students.”

 However, the Head of Information Unit, Mr. Toyin Adebule, has said the institution had no choice but to abide by the decision of the Nigerian Medical Association not to admit more than 150 students into the College of Medicine.

Adebule told  our correspondent on Tuesday, “Our position has not changed. In the past, we used to admit between 300 and 400 students and we have such a system that the number drops to between 100 and 200 by the time they get into 200 level.  That was normal until the Nigerian Medical Association said we must not admit more than 150 students.

“We have to follow the guidelines and let me tell you that admission is provisional until you get into the clinical stage. That is when you are sure of graduating. Even the certificate is an award and look at what happened at the University of Port Harcourt. They were not able to graduate because of overpopulation. There is nothing we can do because we are being regulated.”