UI Adjusts 2017/2018 Academic Calendar (SEE DETAILS)

Owing to deliberations and resolutions reached by Senate of the University of Ibadan while considering recommendations from both the Committee of Provost, Deans and Directors (COPD), and the University Management, the new Session that was originally scheduled to commence immediately after Easter has been rescheduled.

Apart from the other decisions taken, Senate particularly commended Members of the Academic Staff who tirelessly worked to ensure that the 2016/ 2017 Session came to a successful conclusion.

With the approval of the 2016/2017 Sessional results, Senate in its wisdom deemed it fit to create a three week break from 21st March to 13th April 2018 to afford the Academic Staff a short restorative break before the resumption of new students on the 14th April 2018.

Though Orientation begins 16 April 2018, Students will be expected to arrive on Saturday 14 April 2018. The Orientation Programme for the new students and Registration for courses will commence from Monday 16 till Friday 20 April 2018. Lectures will start on Monday 23 April 2018. A clean copy of the Calendar will be published shortly.

With this academic calendar, the 2017/2018 Session is scheduled to end in February 2019. All humanly possible efforts should be put in place by stakeholders, particularly the staff and students, to ensure that this Academic Calendar works.

It is important that as a community we abstain from things that might truncate the Academic Calendar. The rest of the world is neither waiting for us nor upon us.

A major challenge that we face as a University, as you are well aware of, is accommodation and the condition of the Halls of Residence which are barely fit for human habitation. I am reliably informed by students of Mellanby Hall, the oldest Hall of Residence in the University, that their rooms and beddings are infested with bed bugs.

I have since learnt that this infestation has taken over most of the other Undergraduate Halls of Residence, save perhaps for Queen Idia, Queen Elizabeth II and Obafemi Awolowo Halls.

A student resident in Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall sent a WhatsApp message to me overnight to the effect that ‘there is hardly a day that students do not spread their mattresses out in the sun’. Matters of accommodation and matters related to accommodation remain the main reasons for incessant student agitations.

From the recent stock taking and exhaustive evaluation made: mosquito nets in most rooms are torn; the louvres in most rooms broken. The doors locks, and several doors are required to be fixed or replaced. Most Common Rooms and reception of halls are in a deplorable state. The furniture in the Reading (and Cold) Rooms have become threadbare. Water rarely flows in the toilets and conveniences. All manner of plumbing problems and non-functional systems abound. Sewage disposal have also become chaotic.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to bring up decent students who would be worthy in character under the prevailing conditions in which students live in the halls of residence.

It is trite to reinstate here that degrees of the University of Ibadan are awarded in character and learning.

Consequently, Senate has recommended that these issues be painstakingly considered and redressed as soon as possible and to ensure that the forthcoming academic session is hitch free and more rewarding.

Thank you and my best wishes as we make the most of the short break before the commencement of the new session.

God bless.

Idowu Olayinka
Vice-Chancellor
University of Ibadan
Ibadan