Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, UNILAG, has appealed to public-spirited Nigerians to assist indigent candidates to get tablets, as the university prepares for a virtual Post-UTME test.
Ogundipe made the appeal during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos.
According to him, in the face of the resurgence of Novel Coronavirus pandemic, all academic activities of the institution, including examinations, will be online.
”We are to conduct our post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) test on February 15 to February 23; that is, it will run for about nine days.
”This examination is going to be e-examination such that wherever the candidates are, they do not need to come to campus. It is simple and convenient.
”We looked at the issue of indigent candidates, we then decided to see how we can carry them along.
“Right now, we have started talking to some friends of the university and alumni to see how we can get tablets that we can give them.
”We have got the number of these indigent candidates registered for the Post-UTME test, and they are above 200,” he told NAN.
Ogundipe said that the candidates would need the tablets not just for the purpose of the post-UTME test but also to facilitate other e-learning processes.
He said, “We are talking to the alumni president and friends of the university to get these tablets in order to facilitate e-learning processes.”
He said that over 50,000 candidates applied for admission into the university in the 2020/2021 academic session, with about 22,000 scoring 200 marks and above. According to him, 21,955 candidates have so far paid for the conduct of the Post-UTME test.
”It is the first time that we are conducting this type of examination, and it is such that these candidates must have their laptops with cameras.
“If they do not have a camera attached to their laptops, they will not be allowed to participate in the examination. We expect the results to come out within one week after the conduct of the examination,” he said. Ogundipe told NAN that the university had collapsed 2020/2021 academic session with 2021/2022 academic session.
“It is going to affect our admission number, because it means we have to admit two streams, except if JAMB is not conducting its examination this year.
”If it is conducting, we are mandated to admit students,” the vice-chancellor said. Ogundipe reiterated that the institution would commence online lectures for returning students on Monday.
He said that the university could not afford to bring back students to campus due to COVID-19 pandemic. UNILAG is a public research university in Lagos, Nigeria. It is one of the five first generation universities in Nigeria and was founded in 1962. It is ranked among the top universities in the world in major education publications.