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Tag: Afe Babalola University

  • ABUAD founder warns federal and state governments against the proliferation of universities

    ABUAD founder warns federal and state governments against the proliferation of universities

    The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) has cautioned the federal and state governments against the proliferation of universities, stressing that the existing ones were underfunded and lacked the requisite facilities to offer quality education.

    He stated this on Friday at ABUAD on Friday, during the 10th convocation ceremony of the private university held at the Ado- Ekiti campus of the institution.

    The ABUAD founder, Chief Babalola stated that the fact that the university was ranked first in Nigeria and 321 globally by Times Higher Education Impact Ranking, signposted that something good and meritorious can still happen in Nigeria.

    He warned the federal and state governments against the proliferation of universities when the existing ones were underfunded and lacked the requisite facilities to offer quality education.

    Babalola said: “The future of this country is certainly in private universities. By the time ABUAD was founded in 2009, there were only 33 private universities in Nigeria.

    “But between 2009 and now, we have 77 private universities. The strict conditions like a conducive learning environment, provision of teaching facilities, structures, laboratories, libraries, and qualified personnel with which ABUAD was subjected to were no longer there anymore.

    “What we have mainly today seem to be constituency projects to satisfy the yearnings of some governors and legislators.
    “It is inconceivable that a newly established private university is allowed to run Medicine, Engineering, and Law in the first year. We should not allow the undue proliferation of private universities to destroy the quality and functional education.”

    Babalola said the university had expended a total of N1,149,500,000 billion to power scholarships for students and staff, describing these as needed to motivate them to give their best in their services to the nation.

    The Legal Luminary disclosed that the university had offered training to about 1,000 students in Nigeria and the Republic of Benin in agric-based vocations and 894 of them had been provided with start-off facilities to checkmate unemployment and the attendant crimes.

    He urged the youths to work assiduously and halt the drift in the education standards in the country, saying no nation progresses beyond the qualities of its productive population.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that the former Governor of Ekiti State, Engr Segun Oni, the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Garba El-Kanemi, and a legal Icon, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), were garlanded with Honourary Doctoral degrees of the prestigious citadel of learning.

  • Osinbajo explains how to transform legal education in Nigeria

    Osinbajo explains how to transform legal education in Nigeria

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in a pre-recorded statement address, at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) legal education summit held at Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, on Wednesday, stated ways to transform legal education in Nigeria.
    According to him, the development of analytical, critical thinking and problem-solving legal minds is key to transforming legal education in Nigeria.
    The theme of the summit is: “Reimagining Legal Education in Nigeria”.
    The vice president said that such education would not to be confined to the traditional four-wall classroom; a system Nigeria had been operating in the main since the 1960s.
    “Legal education, like many other branches of learning, is designed to evolve with and be responsive to the development of society.
    “Needs for legal services depend on the general dealings and operations of the society.
    “Having been a law teacher for many years, I fully understand that a chief problem of our style of legal education is learning by rote, as opposed to learning for problem-solving.”
    Osinbajo recalled his days as a university lecturer where he taught the Law of Evidence.
    He said that learning for problem-solving placed more emphasis on understanding how to use case law and statutes to solve real-life legal problems rather than just memorising them.
    “It struck me one day while teaching documentary evidence, that students will learn faster if I was able to give them copies of what an original document is, what secondary evidence of it would look like, what a real-life public document is, and what a certified copy looks like,” he explained.
    “So, when I taught the complex issues of proof of documentary evidence, they had a good mental picture of what I had in mind.
    “Also, by posing a problem and asking them to search out the rules to apply, I found that even the least interested students got involved. This is a snippet of what is called Clinical Legal Education, and it is the new and right way of teaching law.”
    The vice president said there was need to decongest over-populated classrooms in law schools across the country by adopting a hybrid approach to education, through the extensive use of technology for teaching.
    He said that Nigeria should learn from other nations that had transformed their systems of legal training through developed structures of periodic review.
    According to him, population explosion – overcrowded classrooms and hostels, inadequate library facilities, limited pool of qualified law teachers are not peculiar to Nigeria.
    He said, however, that other jurisdictions had encountered, at varying degrees, and successfully tackled these challenges.
    “Nigeria’s candidates for law school averaged 10,000; a 10-year review of the admission list of the Nigerian Law School from 2010 to 2020, shows that, on average, the various campuses of the school can accommodate only about 6,000 students.
    “Even before the advent of COVID-19 pandemic, which in a number of countries fast-tracked the adoption of technology in tutoring, other jurisdictions have adopted and institutionalised the use of technology in tutoring, examinations and even their courtroom systems.”
    Osinbajo highlighted examples from the US and the UK.
    He said that in the US, from 2015 – 2017, between 16,000 to 20,000 lawyers joined the pool annually, while similarly high numbers were trained in the UK (21,000) and Australia (8,499).
    On decentralising law schools, Osinbajo said that there were no requirements for residential stay in any formal school setting for the Bar Examination.
    “Applications are completed online and the examination, computer-based, is administered at designated centres.
    “A character and fitness investigation is conducted on applicants prior to issuance of license to practice law.”
    The vice president commended the NBA leadership for its consistent efforts at improving the legal profession through sustained investment in continuing legal education, in particular and advancement of jurisprudence.
    He also acknowledged the contributions of Chief Afe Babalola, for being an undiminished light in the legal profession, and devoting his resources to establishing a world-class university and a faculty of law that has attained such distinction in a few short years.
    Also on Wednesday, Osinbajo spoke at the opening day of the International Woman Leadership Conference 2022, organised by the Ibukun Awosika Leadership Academy in partnership with Dubai Tourism and Dubai Events.
    He said countries with higher levels of gender equality in education and attainment tended to have higher income levels, better lifestyles and better health outcomes.
    “The role of women must go beyond merely breaking glass ceilings.
    “It must be to attain global excellence and leadership; women must play not just to be represented, but to win,” he said.