Adekunle Ajasin University, is known to many people on the streets as a glorified secondary school.
In this analysis, McNezer Fasheun takes you on the road to why:
By the time Pa Adefarati became the elected governor of the new Ondo State, he did not blink an eye before he sited the state-owned University in his relatively rural home town, Akungba Akoko. Up till today, Akungba has not developed to the standard of being a University town as lecturers and students live in places like Akure, Ikare and Oka-Akoko, from where they shuttle daily to come to school. Just as a ritual to ward off a curse, the university was named Adekunle Ajasin, a superficial arrangement that has nothing but cosmetic benefits to its administration. Successive vice-chancellors, has never spent 24 hours at Akungba Akoko at any point in time. This invariably has affected the quality of its faculty by way of lecturers the place would attract.
And It ends with a timely advise to the current occupiers of Alagbaka:
To correct the anomaly, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, the incumbent Governor, must borrow a leaf from older and newer universities which run multi-campus universities. At present, the Osun State University has distributed its campuses in such a manner that no section of the state could feel short - changed. Ifetedo, which, in old Western Region, had shared a community secondary school, with Okeigbo now hosts the faculty of law campus while the humanities are based in Osogbo.
The Adekunle Ajasin University could well leave the faculty of Arts and Management Sciences at Akungba, its present site and central unit. The faculty of law could move to Akure, the state capital with equitable distance to the Benin Judicial Division. Ondo town, and its State Hospital, would better serve as the location of the university's College of Medicine and Teaching Hospital respectively, since Ondo is equally equidistant between the Northern and Southern Senatorial districts of the state. The lately established Ondo State University of Science and Technology could then become the faculty of Engineering, while a school of Marine and Oceanographic with Petroleum institute could be sited at the Igbokoda and Ilaje Ese Odo Local Governments. Each of the campuses would have its administrative structure with a provost as head.
You can only hope they are listening...
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