Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, has said her administration will re-engineer the institution to provide solutions to the nation’s problems.
She promised to make the university future-ready by producing graduates who are top leaders and employers of labour.
Ogunsola spoke yesterday during her investiture as the 13th vice chancellor of the frontline Federal university and the first female to occupy the position.
The ceremony was part of the institution’s 53rd convocation activities.
“Universities are known for standing and upholding merit. I thank the Governing Council for ensuring merit in the choice of the Vice Chancellor.
“In the last 60 years, UNILAG has distinguished itself and has produced over 200,000 graduates. With the upsurge in disruptive technologies, there is a need for us to be future-ready, and we are focusing on preparing students that are future-ready by running a university that is future ready as well,” she said.
Ogunsola said a new campus for research and development (R&D) would be established in the Free Trade Zone at Epe.
“We are committed to working with the Council and others to create a university that will prepare all for the future. Universities are to produce thinkers and the welfare of all. The workers and students would be top priority. We will adopt new teaching methods, and new courses to reflect modern realities would be introduced.
“In line with our mandate, a new campus for research and development in the free trade zone of Epe would kick off. We will strengthen our alumni relations and be in the forefront of promoting urban agriculture,” she said.
Ogunsola, who bemoaned the antion’s high rate of emigration by skilled workers, stressed the need to retain skilled workers in the country.
The UNILAG Pro-Chancellor, who is also the Chairman of the Governing Council, Senator Lanre Tejuosho, said the choice of Ogunsola as the VC was by divine arrangement.
He said eminent scholars applied for the position and the selection process was transparent and seamless.
The representative of the Federal Government, who is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Dr. Chris Mayaki, said universities must tailor their academic programmes to enable students have skills relevant in the 21st century.
He hailed the VC for helping to stabilise the university during crisis that rocked it when Dr. Wale Babalakin was the Governing Council Chairman.
In his convocation lecture, titled: Finding the Boundaries of the Possible, Venturing Beyond, Managing Partner of Grand Central Africa, Mr. Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, urged universities to deploy technology to the fullest, saying this would boost operational reform in the education sector.
Dignitaries at the event included former President Olusegun Obasanjo; Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe; Founder of Guaranty Trust Bank and FATE Foundation, Mr. Fola Adeola; Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, among others.
