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The National President of the University of Ilorin Alumni Association, Prof Abdulrasaq Kilani, on Sunday, warned youths against describing education as a scam.
Kilani also decried the large number of first-class graduates being churned out by the private universities, urging the National Universities Commission to step in for quality control.
The Professor of Islamic Studies disclosed this while speaking in an interview with newsmen on Sunday, in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital during the Ogun State UNILORIN Alumni Annual General Meeting and Taorid Odedele Memorial Lecture with the theme “Strengthening Alumni Associations for Societal Development and Growth.”
He explained that people going about with the wrong notion of education as a scam would have themselves to blame later in life.
Kilani said, “How can anyone say that education is a scam? If you want to continue wallowing in poverty and ignorance, then you can say that education is a scam.
“The truth is that education liberates. Education offers you the best opportunity you can ever dream of as an individual. Education helps to uplift in the society.
“If someone wants to be free from poverty, let him be educated but if someone wants to go down, let him avoid going to school or being educated, so it is wrong for anyone to describe education as a scam..”.
He said that it is also important that the NUC look into the large turnout of first class graduates from these institutions for quality control and to ensure that only deserving graduates were truly awarded.
Kilani agreed that the number of first-class being churned out by the universities has increased much more than it was in the past because students now have increased access to information with the age of the internet.
He said, “In our days in school, maybe we had a book to 200 students in a library and you had to go to the library several times without getting the book, that has changed now.
“With a tap either on your iPad or Android phone, you can access a lot of information, which has contributed very largely to the increase in the number of first-class graduates
“Additionally, I also want to believe that the students nowadays have better primary and secondary education than what we had.
“Most of them went to private schools where they were exposed to sophisticated teaching methodology early in life, this has no doubt enhanced the quality of education received by these children and of course has in one way or the other contributed to the increase in the numbers of First Class graduates.”
Kilani, however, added, “I am also aware that many of these private universities dishing out First Class are running a business. And one of the PR you have to do is to get people to come to your university and that is where we have the pitfalls. If you go to public universities, you don’t see such large numbers of First Class graduates as you see in private universities today.
“That’s an area of quality control and quality assurance that the NUC must look into. I am not saying that the students in private universities are not good or not being taught but something can be done to ensure that those who received the first class merited it.
“A situation whereby you will have 500 First Class calls for concern, at the University of Ilorin, between 1982 to 1986, I don’t think we have up to three First Class graduands. I am saying that yes the students may be good, brilliant but some may not deserve to have First class..the NUC must step in to stem the tide.”
He urged the alumni of various institutions across the globe to find a way of supporting the further growth and development of their Alma mater by tapping on their rich network to give back to their former schools.
Ayobamigbe Faloye, the Chairman of the state chapter of the association charged members of the alumni to get involved in nation-building
Faloye said “We need to get involved in nation-building. We need to look beyond networking for individual interests and purposes for better societal interest.
“Nobody is going to turn around the fortune of our nation, our communities, our society for us other than us, we must therefore get down to work.”
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