The Lagos State University (LASU) will hold its 23rd convocation on Thursday. Its Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof Lanre Adigun Fagbohun, says the 14,369 graduands are ready for work. During an interactive session with reporters, he spoke of his plans for the university. ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA was there.
During the last convocation, the university produced 24 First Class graduates. But this year, it is 57. What accounted for the increase?
It is the product of the quality assurance that management put in place. Every unit of the university has keyed into the vision of what we want to achieve for ourselves. LASU is now a university that is restless. Our students are engaged in various activities and you see them competing with themselves and with the outside world. Charity begins at home; so, we sharpen our students. First, to forestall a scenario where they will suffer complex issues among their contemporaries outside the university.
Would you say that LASU graduates are work ready?
I will say with all confidence that the graduating students are trained and ready for the world of work. This is not mere wishful thinking; it’s a question of what we have packaged into them. The ‘Ready-Set-Work’ (an initiative of Lagos State government to instill employability skills in students in tertiary schools in Lagos) is the main platform which has enhanced the employability and the entrepreneurial skills of our students. It has exposed them to the world of work so much that employers now come here (LASU) and pick our students long before they graduate.
We have also started the LASU Career Development Centre (LCDC). It’s an online platform. The moment you are registered as our student, you are automatically registered under that platform. It’s a platform where we continually train students on how to prepare curriculum vitae, approach interviewers, and how to get counsel on any business of interest our students intend to follow after graduation. You will also find on the platform a number of professional bodies students can join before graduation. Besides, we also have guidance counsellors. As our student, we use the opportunity of the counsellors to put you through should you be confused and do not know where to go. This is a continuous process. We launched that platform early last year, and it’s doing very well. Third, LASU has a Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies. The idea is to ensure we breed students who can expunge the entrepreneurial fear of joblessness. Lots of activities are going on and you media can attest to it by coming around and interacting with our students.
The World Bank has named LASU as African Centre of Excellence (ACE) for innovative and transformative Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). How is the university responding to this challenge?
Centres of excellence are structured in such a way that different institutions are given different mandates. We, in LASU, are into tech. We are going to be training postgraduate students in different areas by deploying innovative methodologies to teaching them. We have taken to bear innovative approach for this.
Centres of excellence are considered knowledge incubators that can produce knowledge for the African continent. It was a very stiff competition that the World Bank itself presided over before making a choice of LASU, among other 16 universities that applied from Nigeria and about 154 from across Africa. So, I thank the entire LASU community that our university is now one of them.
What new ground will LASU break from next year?
First, we are desirous of consolidating on our international partnership and some of the linkages we have with our partners abroad. We are going to be sending our students and workers there, while they also will be sending theirs here. So, do not be surprised if by next year, you see our students and friends from America, UK and other European countries taking lectures with our students here. We believe in cross fertilisation of ideas.
For sometime, LASU stopped giving honorary awards. Does it mean it has not yet found distinguished Nigerians deserving of such awards?
It is not to say that we don’t have Nigerians that are qualified for our (honorary) awards. Our problem is that our process is very rigorous. Very soon, we will commence the honorary awards and, by then, you will see the kind of people that we will parade as our awardees. But for now, we want to tread softly.
Early this year, the university announced that the VC had signed over 30,000 certificates and that students should come for them. How many have been collected so far?
I want to say as at today, if you are a graduate of LASU and have not collected your certificate, it is because you are not interested in that certificate. The university management created a platform during the university’s birthday where we announced that over 30,000 certificates were yet to be collected and that students should come and pick them up. We gave a three-month window which has since lapsed. So, if any student wants to collect his or her certificate, he or she must be prepared to pay a fine for late collection.
