By Modupe Balogun
There is no doubt that higher institutions, like their lower counterparts, exist primarily to impart knowledge through learning. Therefore, the need to create a serene and conducive atmosphere for effective learning becomes imperative. An academic environment should be devoid of extraneous noise, and anything capable of breaking the flow of thought and disrupting the impartation of knowledge. That probably explains why most tertiary institutions strive to ensure a quiet, serene and conducive atmosphere to engender effective learning.
In Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko (AAUA), the management has put in place every necessary machinery and facility that guarantees learning and knowledge impartation in a very conducive environment. From the main gate where well-kept lawns, hedges and flowering plants welcome visitors, one is constantly faced with a panoramic view of shaded areas, lawns, green gardens and parks crowded with students, and sometimes staff members, taking advantage of what have become natural libraries scattered all over the campus. These have also led to students getting more serious and studious; and thus a campus free of riots and unrest.
According to the Dean, Student Affairs of the Institution, Dr. Bolanle Ogungbamila, the University’s Management is more than willing to bend over backwards to adopt and implement policies that are student friendly and focused. He also said the University has created several parks, gardens, green belts, and shaded areas where students can read, study, mix, and generally interact while enjoying the cool breeze and the shade of the several carefully-chosen, planned and planted trees.
In fact, the University’s ICT Centre, the Faculty of Science building, and the bank areas, are fast becoming a vast area of parks, where students and even staff members are found with open books, ipads, and laptops deep in studious work. Group discussions are also not uncommon with students brainstorming on knotty academic issues. While some bring chairs, mats or other items needed to make studying more comfortable, others are seen with rechargeable lamps and food flasks beside them. These are clear pointers that they are there for the long haul. They have either been there for a long time or they plan to be there for hours. It also signals the conduciveness of the campus environment for serious academic work.
The sight of students making use of improvised seats has, however, given the University’s Management food for thought. Dr. Ogungbamila said, “We are thinking of collaborating with the students’ body to build concrete seats and benches across our parks and green areas where students can seat, enjoy fresh air and generally relax and unwind.” This means that sooner than later, we will have well-arranged seats and benches to aid the throng of students taking advantage of these shaded areas.
The AAUA campus environment is, however, not only about parks and green areas. Apparently recognizing that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, the Institution also built an expansive hall aptly called Students Relaxation Centre that is equipped with giant television screens where students watch live broadcast of local and international sporting events and other programmes free of charge. This, according to Dr. Ogungbamila, was borne out of the realization that several of the students are followers and ardent fans of various local and foreign football clubs and leagues.
In his words, “We believe that if you want to get the students, you must also think like them. Most of them are fans of different foreign and local clubs. So, the University created relaxation centres where they can watch live football matches on giant screens free of charge. We are building another massive students centre that is about 80 percent completed. When it is commissioned and put to use, it will accommodate more students and have all necessary facilities to enable our students to relax, unwind, mix, and recreate.”
A visitor to Adekunle Ajasin University would observe that the Institution is growing rapidly and it has structures and centres spread over a relatively wide area. This has necessitated the students and staff having to commute fairly long distances, thus an effective internal transportation system becomes a necessity. Otherwise, a student who had to trek kilometers from one lecture hall to another would have become fagged out and such a student’s attentiveness in class could be negatively affected. But a fleet of tricycles are always on hand to ferry students round the ever-expanding campus. And the ubiquitous commercial motorcyclists, called okada in local parlance, complement this internal arrangement. Though they are not allowed within the campus, they still render invaluable service in moving staff and students from the main gate (Western axis) to the main gate in the Eastern axis of the school.
Dr. Ogungbamila spoke on how the Management aims to expand the internal transportation arrangement. “Though we are yet to get it right, we aim to put in place a system that can move students enmasse from one point to the other as our University is expanding so fast. We thought of tricycles and we brought in a few units. But we have about 14, 000 students to move around; therefore, we are thinking of expanding the Scheme and working out easy and friendly fares and ways of operating it. All in all, we have managed the students so well that there have been no riots on our campus. And it’s not been easy having over 14, 000 students from different backgrounds, homes, and religions on a restricted environment where they will mix and interact. Majority of them are leaving their homes for the first time in their lives for this type of environment; therefore, the coping mechanisms they learnt at home might not be enough for them to cope here. So, we mentor them and organize orientation lectures for them, all in a bid to ensure they keep their heads.”
It is an obvious fact that the nation is yet to get it right in electricity generation and distribution. Thus, Adekunle Ajasin University, like its peers across the country, has had to rely on generators. In fact, so poor is electricity supply to Akungba Akoko that the town hardly gets it for six hours in a week. The cost of fuelling and maintaining a myriad of generators of varying sizes, models and capacity to power the various activities and machines on a vast campus is thus better imagined. But the availability of regular power supply on campus has ironically become a windfall for the students as they take advantage of it to charge and recharge lamps, phones and other electronic devices.
This ‘helping hand’ was praised by Mr. Olawale Moshood Bolarinwa, the best graduating student of the school. Speaking at the University’s 6th Convocation ceremony held in December 2015, Olawale said he, along with many others, usually came loaded with lamps and other electronic gadgets for charging, even as they stayed long hours on campus to read far into the night. Thus, while the University must be shouldering a heavy load of procuring fuel for the many generator sets, it has ironically been putting smiles on the faces of the students who take advantage of the regular power supply on campus to become more studious and serious. A case of different strokes for different folks you would say. In addition to these interventions, Management is making frantic efforts to liaise with relevant agencies to ensure regular supply of electricity to the campus and the town.
Any wonder then that Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, has for the second time running been rated the Best State University in the country? Any wonder that the Institution has been running a stable and predictable academic calendar? Students know when they would resume for and complete a semester, a rarity in the usually chaotic and haphazard Nigerian education system. Any wonder that AAUA has remained a darling and a destination of choice for various students across the nation as attested to by the number jostling for the few available slots. In the last admission exercise of the school, about 27, 000 UTME candidates chose the Institution, while over 22,000 came for the post-UTME for the 4,000 available slots. In fact, AAUA has been rated as the most subscribed University in the South-West and the 20th in the nation, an uncommon feat in a region boasting the highest number of tertiary Institutions in the country.
Welcome therefore to Adekunle Ajasin University where we are building a 21st Century University, properly called. Welcome to an Institution where the Management is leaving no stone unturned in the quest to create a peaceful and serene environment that is conducive for learning. Welcome to a University where, in the words of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Igbekele Ajibefun, “the students are kings and they come first.”
Balogun writes from the Information, Protocol and Public Relations Unit of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko.
