Private varsities must maintain standards for competitiveness at open job market–KDU VC

He was named the substantive Vice Chancellor of Kola Daisi University (KDU), Oyo, after acting in that capacity following the short tenure and rapid exit of his two predecessors who administered the institution from inception. About three years in the saddle, the academic cum legal genius shares his experience on the job with IYABO LAWAL. Among other things, he says though public universities are notorious for bureaucratic procedures, which could hinder academic governance, his insight and experience about the working of a government- owned university have actually been beneficial to running the private institution, adding that both sectors have strengths and advantages, which could be mutually benefitting.

What did you find attractive about the classroom?

There are various areas that one can delve into as a lawyer. It ranges from private practice, or going into the public service as state counsel, which eventually leads you into becoming a magistrate or a judge, corporate law (like working in the bank, oil and gas industry and so on). It is a very broad and wide sphere. But right from the outset, I have always desired to be a professor. That has always been my ambition. When I was in the ministry, my goal was to go for my Masters and PhD, though at that time, it was not so enterprising even to most of our leaders. What determines where a lawyer will be is the first three, five years of his call to Bar. So, when I completed my service year, I joined the Oyo State Ministry of Justice. If I had stayed there, I would have become a judge as far back as 2003. I saw the classroom as more challenging. When I left the ministry, I found out it was true. In the Ministry, they handle work at a very slow pace. Some cases will be handled, while some may not. But when you are in the classroom, you are challenged in terms of intellect, time and so forth, even where you have never averted your mind to, your students can prop you to explore that area. So, I found the academic community more challenging and able to bring out and develop my potential very well.

What’s your experience in a private university, with your public sector background, particularly in terms of taking decisions, administrative procedures and funding?

As I said, private universities need public universities to thrive and also a public university needs private universities. So, it is a kind of symbiotic relationship. I see it more as trying to harness strengths of the various sides and putting them together because there are lots of things in the public universities that will always be relevant for us in the private universities. One of them is getting the best in terms of competent staff. You cannot discount that fact. Because of the number of years that public universities have been in existence, they have in place structure and equipment to effectively train students. There is a kind of MoU we have with the University of Ibadan. The NUC stipulates that private universities should have mentors, so, the University of Ibadan is our mentor. We have a working relationship with them. When we need expertise, we call on them. When we need some training for our staff, we go to them and when we also need some to come in for sabbatical where we feel we do not have enough hands, we invite them.

Private universities are often accused of compromising admission and academic standards. How does that apply to KDU?

Private universities need to maintain standards because their products will also compete at the open job market. Nobody will say you are a product of a private university and give you any leverage. No, because there is a benchmark that the National Universities Commission (NUC) has set. I believe it depends on the individual university as well as the founder and the governing council.

In our governing council, we have experienced administrators and our founder is a man of high integrity and standard. He does not believe in lowering standards and we too are ensuring that we keep that mandate. We ensure that we get students that are competent so that we would be able to get better results. It is not as if it is everybody that comes around that we take, we also do our own pruning. If you are examined and we find that we can admit you, we do so. If not, we let you go. But in our own case, we ensure that we get the best.

Do you have some internal mechanism for bolstering scholarship?

Yes, we do. NUC gave us the quota for admission. We have never exhausted it. Most of the time, we turn down those who come because if the standard of a particular prospective student is very low, bad or poor, it may be difficult for us to make that student outstanding.

There is a modicum of standard expected from our own end before we can accept such students. So, in that way, we ensure that we do not go below our standard.

Also, we have enough lecturers and also make use of experienced people who come for sabbatical or some other kind of partnership and then we moderate our exams. We take it to federal universities, to state universities to be able to see that what our lecturers are saying are what obtains in those places in terms of quality control and standard.

So, we do not mortgage that essential factor at all because it is our products that will eventually sell us by the time we have three, four sets of graduates.

How about private universities’ indiscriminate award of first class degrees to their graduates to make themselves attractive?

That is what is generally assumed. I just want to assure the public that it is not what obtains because there is no way that can ever uplift people to the detriment of others. We have marking guides, we have external moderators who are not from our university but from either federal or state universities. They are not from a state university that will say it wants to give any kind of support that is not necessary. So, most of the time, the students are assessed based on individual performances.

In our own case, we ensure that we approach issues based on the best tradition of the university system. It is not in our own interest to unnecessarily favour a particular student or to be too generous for the purpose of giving students what they do not deserve. If a student is first class, he must be above all in terms of academic excellence and we are also cautious that we do not want a situation whereby our products will not be able to measure up to the class of degree they may claim when they graduate from the university.

During our previous graduation ceremony, we had about 52 graduating students with about eight first class out of 12 academic programmes. We even had third class among them.

How do you joggle your busy schedule as a professor and vice chancellor with family and social life?

There is always a time for one to relax, but most of the time, I am too engrossed with my work. I always want to ensure that whatever needs to be done is done on time.

But now as a vice chancellor, the bulk of the academic work has gone down because I do more of administrative duties now. Nevertheless, I still try to mentor some students, so that if there is an opportunity (I have a lot of papers that are yet to be accepted for publication) I can ask them to go and do this and that and put them together.

Well, my day is more of work, work situation. I wake up by 5am, do my personal devotion and quiet time. Thereafter, I check my mails, especially if I am expecting some mails and prepare for work with the help of my wife. When I get to the office; I attend to people, so many meetings also take place. Then, there are the responsibilities of being a vice chancellor. One is always striving to keep timelines. By God’s grace, I try as much as possible to prioritise and then to delegate in some situations, but then, there is also the need to oversee things because whatever you ask me to do, you should also check if it has been done properly.

But by and large, having trained as a lawyer and prosecutor in the ministry and before now, I was also engaged in private practice when I was growing up as a lecturer. So, it gave us that line of independence and autonomy. That is why I have been able to try and combine all the work with supervision because what is important is that whatever one sets his hand to do, one must be able to accomplish it.

What is your agenda for the university and how does that tally with that of the founder?

The first agenda is to build up a very robust structure for the university and part of what we need to grow is to let our lecturers understand that there is no shortcut to success. Because of the increase in the number of universities here and there, there is pressure on upcoming young scholars not to actually take their time to plan and have a career line.

Many of them have been either poached or lured into other places. But it’s important for everybody to have a career projection. So, we are training them. We are encouraging them to ensure that they keep up with trends in their areas of expertise.

And we are also offering opportunities for them to be retrained from time to time to keep them abreast of their areas of expertise so that they can also compete and give our students the best and impact them positively.

How about your insight into the working of a private institution vis-a-vis your knowledge of that of a public university now you are at the helm of affairs?

Every experience is relevant in any area that we find ourselves. As a public sector person, we used more of a committee system in the public university. There are some elements of bureaucracy in the public sector. I used that experience to make sure that we fine-tuned things and got the best here.

We do less bureaucracy here. We get things done better and faster than in public universities. We get things done faster because we do not get tied to strict compliance of bureaucratic dictates. But we ensure that in line with academic culture, we keep well to rules and regulations necessary for us to make Kola Daisi a sustainable university. So, we blend the two. Also, I am a lawyer, I have a chamber that I operate, and with that background and experience of handling my private business, I get things done swiftly and with relative ease. My wife and I also have a private nursery school, primary and secondary school, so we have been used to that kind of private approach to doing business. It is not actually a strange or difficult thing. I harness all these experiences to make sure that we achieve better results that private universities are for.

How secure is KDU campus?

Security is a big issue for which every institution must make their own internal arrangements.

As far as we are concerned, we have in place adequate and sufficient security apparatus and architecture to ensure that our students as well as staff including those who also patronise us in the university are protected.

We also have an understanding with law enforcement agencies – the Nigerian Police, the Civil Defence Corps and some others for regular surveillance and patrol, while we also ask our students to be vigilant and avoid going out unnecessarily. There is a procedure if at all they must go out and the parents must be contacted to confirm if they are aware and approve of it. This enables them also to trace their ward while in transit.

We are also encouraging them to have ad-hoc form of paramilitary training. We have some groups like Man ‘O’ War, Red Cross Society and others, which we encourage them to join and thereby imbibe security consciousness and awareness and prepare them for self-defence in emergencies.