Doctorate Degrees Not Exclusive Preserve Of Moneybags- VC
The Vice Chancellor, Federal University, Oye Ekiti(FUOYE), Prof Kayode Soremekun, has declared that it is wrong for Nigerian universities to make conferment of honorary doctorate degrees to be exclusive rights of the wealthy people in the society.
Soremekun said the university would be conferring Doctor of Educational Administration (Honoris Causa) on the first indigenous principal of Queens College, Lagos, Mrs. Efunjoke Coker, for her exemplary contributions to the up-liftment of education in Nigeria.
In the same vein, the university scholar added that an 89-year old retired school principal, Mr. Francis Daramola and a 100-year old former principal of Ekiti Parapo College, Ido Ekiti, Ekiti State, Chief Akomolafe , will get similar academic laurel.
Soremekun, who said this in Oye Ekiti , on Wednesday during a pre-convocation press conference to unveil the maiden convocation ceremonies of the university slated for April 29, said : “the gesture is to remember these great Nigerians, who had in their own ways contributed to scholarship.
“It is sad that we are all suffering from amnesia which makes us forget people so easily. The people we remember only remembered are politicians and with this , we will be setting a new moral standard for the Nigerian society”.
Soremekun added that the university has received a message of collaboration from the Programme Director of the Social Science
Research Council of New York, United States of America in the area of academic Honorary Degrees, saying it shouldn’t be Exclusive Preserve of Moneybags.
He described this proposed academic partnership as a veritable avenue to launch the institution to global reckoning and boost its rankings in the Webometric and research.
“The Council be drawing their membership from FUOYE, Liberia , Sierra Leone and other West African nations. With this partnership , we will put FUOYE on global radar of scholarship”, he said.
The Vice Chancellor said the university has established three more faculties and 19 new courses within the one year he came on board, while other infrastructure in forms of lecture theatres have been added to the architectural designs of the citadel of learning.
He said the university under him had also designed a curriculum that would enhance smooth take off of the Faculty of Pharmacy in no distant time.
