Olu Samuel, Lokoja

A professor of BioChemistry at the Federal University, Lokoja, David Kolawole Omole,has canvassed a uniform process for awarding degrees by both private , states and Federal Universities.

This he said would address the Ill feelings about the qualities of the degrees being awarded by these universities.

“This becomes imperative to monitor the process by which Universities used in awarding their certificates, adding that private Universities were allegedly noted for shunning out first class degrees above states and federal Universities”.

Prof Kolawole David Omole gave the charge in his Inaugural lecture, title ” Making Best of available opportunities in search of knowledge on a windy path, held Wednesday 17, 2024.

The lecture which is the 20th in the series , the professor posited that for the certificates from Nigeria tertiary institutions to have worth and global recognition, teachers and lecturers and university administrators need to maintain high integrity of their examinations.

He urged the university authorities to strive to improve the integrity of its examinations, which will eliminate doubts and misgivings about the quality of degrees produced by the Universities.

He said the private universities produced the highest percentage of students’ turn over with better class of degrees than those from Federal and state universities, stressing that there is need for efficient and effective monitoring and evaluation process to maintain uniformity in the quality of instruction and certification across all university categories in Nigeria.

He stated that this was revealed through a study which used an ex-post facto research design.

He advised National policy makers to strengthen the post Utme screening to ensure that the best admission applicants are admitted, stressing that studies have shown that those with high post Utme results often come out with higher grades.

According to him” Public examinations poorly predicted university achievement suggests that they may not be good indices for determining or selecting those who are likely to succeed in university education.

While acknowledging the importance of tests and examinations in assessing the quality and quantity of knowledge dissemination and assimilation in the course of instruction which has its challenges, he urged National Policy makers to continue to search for other methods that will ultimately deliver the best to the nation.

“It has been established that there is ‘No one single jacket fit all’ method in the assessment and evaluation of instruction and programme in education”,

He called for the adoption of methods in which the assessment result is to be the best determinant of the method and principle to be employed in the process.