Over 7,000 new students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo state celebrated their matriculation ceremony with pomp and pageantry. This is a great success.
There are two genres of students, they are the serious and the unserious ones. Serious ones will be ruminating on the godly techniques they can utilise to graduate with flying colour while those of the other calibre of people will be cogitating on ways to associate themselves with new friends who will broaden their horizon in becoming an expert internet swindler and many other unscrupulous endeavours that have enveloped this 21st century.
Education, they say, is a potent weapon to fight ignorance; absence of it is outright obscurity. It is unfortunate that in Nigeria holding of first-degree certificate (B.Sc., B. Ed, B. Sc. Edu, B. Tech, B. A. etc.) is tantamount to a sachet of water which is usually dumped on the floor.
Hundreds of thousands of people are graduating annually from universities, polytechnics, colleges, etc. with no employment opportunity and some are still gaining admission. Gone are the days when job seeking usually requires low effort. What is the hope of the unemployed graduates? Should they be optimistic or pessimistic? However, some people are lucky, they secure jobs easily.
In this country, the level of employment opportunity is low. This can be avouched by the histrionic and at the same lugubrious incidence that occurred on 5th September, 2022 in LAUTECH in which an alumnus stormed the institution, as a result of what seems like depression, wanted to return his first-degree certificate, requested the tuition he has paid since he secured admission into the citadel of learning. This is very unsavoury although, he has been receiving financial assistance.
It is crystal fact that success in life can never be guaranteed by the level of education one attains. However, it will be more than pleasant to be educated than being a mere ignorant in the society. Formal education, that is teaching and learning process, being carried out in the four walls of the classroom, is for the upliftment of the society.
In this epoch, social vices aren’t seen as sin but as just a way of life by some ‘moral-lacking’ students. Social vices such as cultism, examination malpractice, gangsterism, fornication, sexual assault, drinking of alcohol and unleashing of ruckus in and outside the campus, to mention but a few, are common place.
Serious students who have the mindset of graduating in flying colour are herein admonished to shun all the moral decadence highlighted above. I am not saying the students should not create friendship because the secondary purpose of attending higher institution of learning is to garner connections which often makes an individual to have immense influence across a particular entity.
Contrarily, according to the research, the hazard being wreaked by peer group is immense than the positive ones. Students have to be careful with the kind of pals they move with – birds of a feather flock together.
The law and order of the school should also be religiously adhered to, to avoid being a prey of who will be on the lists of infamous students in the institution which puts a stain to his immaculate toga of integrity in the future.
Congratulations to the newly matriculated students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo state. Success awaits you all.
Olayode Inaolaji,
Ogbomoso, Oyo state
[email protected]
