By Charles Akinbode
As the Redeemer’s University, Ede on Tuesday recorgnized its many students and staff for outstanding performance, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Anthony Akinlo, has said the institution would continue to invest more in world-class infrastructure and human development.
He promised to motivate the students and workers in order to increase productivity and standard sos as to justify the National University Commission’s ranking as second bewt private university in Nigeria.
The university announced a scholarship covering the full course of tuition for 19 students of 2021-2022 with the highest CGPA while 28 ‘silver scholars’ got a scholarship of 50 per cent of their tuition.
Also, 23 students in various departments under the ‘bronze scholars’ were given 50 per cent of the cost of tuition for the 2021/2022 session.
Akinlo, who spoke during the university’s 16th Convocation Award Ceremony and Recognition Day in Ede, Osun State, said the award and recognition had been dedicated to those considered to have distinctly performed their responsibilities well in the past one year.
According to him: “Also, some deserving non-members of staff of the university will be honoured for their unprecedented contribution to the progress and development of the university.
“No amount of gift or encomium offered would compensate for what many of the staffers have given to the university.
“The university will continue to strive higher in a competitive academic environs, especially in research breakthrough and infrastructure development.
“We are the best private university and the second overall best in Nigeria due to our hard work according to the 2022 National Universities Commission ( NUC) latest ranking.”
Congratulating the recipients of various categories of awards, he implored them to continue to improve in what may have been considered for nominating them for future awards.
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank Pan African Centre and the Chairman of the Redeemer’s University Convocation Diamond set 2022, Mr. Dele Alabi, said the university had continued to demonstrate execellent track record in terms of perfromance.
Alabi said the excellent culture of recognising best students and lecturers was in line with global best practices, advising the awardees to maintain high standardisation and commitment in raising the bar higher at their various duty posts without any complacency.
He explained that integrity, commitment and dedication were key ingredients for greater achievement which, according to him, the university had significantly demonstrated.
He maintained that reward for hard work is more work, adding that those who were not given awards should persevere to strive and compete with their equals in a competitive academic environment.
However, Alabi lamented the rising rate of people moving to private universities saying that the standard of education has fallen in public universities.
He, therefore, advised the federal and state governments to come together and lift the standard of education back to its usual position.
He noted that students usually agitate to go to public universities in the 70s to 80s when “attending a public university in Nigeria was a great thing to do.”
He said: “But now, the standard has fallen significantly. A lot of people have had to move away from public universities to private universities. It should not be like that, it ought not to be like that.
“The federal government of Nigeria, both at the national and sub-national level have to come together to ensure that we lift our education higher.”
He maintained that education is not cheap, saying “there has to be some cost to education and all the relevant stakeholders must come together to lift our education higher.”
