The Students Union Government (SUG) of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) has written to the state government to suspend the process of renaming the institution.
The students made this known, on Wednesday, in a press statement signed by Adeboye Anuoluwa, President; Opaleke Ibrahim Okiki, General Secretary and Michael Love Gabriel, Public Relations Officer.
They said the government should rather help them to reopen the institution.
The statement read in full: “A University of Technology is a highly complex organizational entity consisting of diverse but highly specialized units. The National Policy on Education lays emphasis on the role of universities in the promotion of national unity. To this end, the policy requires that all undergraduates should be given broad based education in addition to their areas of specialization. Such broad based education includes a thorough understanding of the society in which the students live. The provision of these various skills and requirements can best be given in a University of Technology. Technology exists in a social and cultural context. It deals not merely with technical skills but also very often with social skills. In order to put technology in appropriate social context, it is important that certain disciplines which are usually regarded as humanities should be integrated into University of Technology.
“1. As contained in the enabling documents and report of the technical committee that established LAUTECH in 1990, it is envisaged that more faculties will evolve in future from the developments and programmes under the first phase. The full implementation is slated for the second phase of the development of the University. The second phase development captures all the courses in different fields of study and would not affect or cause any alteration in the name, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology.
“2. On Monday, 14th March 2022, the National Universities Commission (NUC) after a resource verification visit was carried out by their panels of experts to some proposed academic programmes, approved thirteen (13) different courses which includes five (5) Education and Humanities Studies;
(a) Library and Information Science (BLIS)
(b) Sociology (B.Sc)
(c) English Language and Literary Studies (B.A)
(d) Philosophy (B.A)
(e) History (B.A)
This proves that LAUTECH can start new courses or be changed to a conventional university without affecting or causing any alteration in the name thereby fulfilling part of the second phase development.
“3. The renowned Universities of Technology across the country and globe are offering courses such as Education, Social Sciences, Art and Law. For example:
(a) Enugu State University of Science and Technology (https://esut.edu.ng) offers courses in Law, Education, Social sciences and Management sciences.
(b) Bells University of Technology (https://bellsuniversity.edu.ng) offers courses in Accounting, Economics, Finance and Banking, Human Resources Management and Marketing.
(c) Federal University of Technology, Minna (https://futminna.edu.ng) offers courses in Education.
(d) Tallinn University of Technology , Estonia (Taltech) (https://taltech.ee/en) offers courses in Arts, Law, Social Sciences.
(e) Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand (https://aut.ac.nz) offers courses such as History, Languages, Law, Education, Psychology, Arts, Journalism.
“4. The annihilating effect of renaming the University which is currently the Best State University in Nigeria is enormous and unquantifiable on all the holders of the certificate of the University (Alumni), students, workers, host community and all other stakeholders that have been identified with LAUTECH.
“5. The response of the students extracted from an online survey on the proposed renaming of LAUTECH conducted by the Students’ Union Government on February 9th 2022 reveals a 99.74% (19,950 reponse count) opposing the renaming of LAUTECH. (See attached file)
“6. We pray that the Oyo State House of Assembly Committee on Education should immediately order the suspension of the proposed renaming of LAUTECH and thus look into the salient and important matters confronting the University at the moment which includes:
(a) The strike embarked upon by the Staff Unions since 14th February, 2022 which has lasted over 5months and in continuation.
(b) The unavailability of lecture halls and standard clinical and medical laboratories for the medical students that were transferred to the College of Health Sciences after the sole ownership since November, 2020.
(c) The lecturer to student ratio; the need to employ more lecturers into the University.
(d) Bursary Scholarship for indigents and grants for student’s projects and research.”
