Still on LAUTECH...

THERE is no doubt that the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, has become a study in Nigerian educational institution anomie. In the last few years, the institution has been embroiled in a suffusion of crises that are traceable to an apparent decision of its two owner-states, Oyo and Osun, to fiddle with its survival. The outcome of this neglect is perennial academic staff strikes, student protests and a general disruption of peace on the campus. Only last year, the institution was subsumed in an academic strike that had students staying at home for months. This necessitated a protest march to the office of one of the governors and the embarrassing interface eventually went viral. This forced a hurried détente between the two governments controlling the institution and the students and an agreement to make N500 million available by each governor to fund the institution. But the staff had hardly resumed operations when they embarked on another strike, predicating their action on the failure of the two owner states to fulfill their promises. The staff are currently being owed several months of salaries.  There is thus a general atmosphere of disillusionment surrounding LAUTECH. Angered by the systemic neglect of its fate, students of the institution recently stopped the school from being used for the Federal Government-organised Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). While many of the students of the school have had their academic course either truncated or fractured, there is a reported exodus of staff from the university. Only recently, it was reported that a mass resignation of specialists had hit its Teaching Hospital. About 150 officials, including 100 nurses, 20 consultants, 10 laboratory scientists, five physiotherapists, six pharmacists and some resident doctors and ward orderlies are said to have indicated their readiness to exit  the university.