Acting VC IAUE Onuchuku charges parents to monitor academic activities of their children

The need for parents and guardians to monitor the academic activities of their children, was the crux of a recent conversation with the acting Vice Chancellor of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, IAUE, Professor Okechuku Onuchuku.

Speaking with Africa Update during an interview, Onuchuku said the lack of interest in the activities of Children in higher institutions of learning has led to an increased number of school dropouts due to poor academic performance and indulgence in cult related activities.

His words: ” You don’t just bring your child to school and you don’t ask questions. You find out in most cases that some parents decide to ask questions when it’s too late. The child will be in school and wont be attending lectures, won’t write exams and all that and at the end of the day, there is nothing to write home about.

“So what we are saying is that parents should take it as a point of duty to monitor the academic programme of their children.”

On the plans of the Institution for the new academic year

The University Don said: ” The total number of matriculants for this current academic year is 7,338 and we have an increase from what we used to have, because of the newly established programmes.

“Those programmes have been approved by NUC and we have a total of 54 programmes in this University, out of which 47 are fully accredited and the remaining 7 have been sent to be verified. That’s why we’re having these great numbers.

“It is clear that when the students come to school the basic thing is to study, so one of the first things is to take their studies seriously and ensure they don’t join secret cult.

“Because we have seen situations where a student will enter into the University and was doing well initially, but because when he enters into one of these nonsense things they do, their performance begin to drop.

” i also told them that they need to obey the University rules. We have handed over to them the University academic statement and rules and regulations of the University and it is clearly written there that after the first year, your result will be checked if you don’t have the minimum of 1.5, you will be placed under probation and during that probation period, you can even change Department within the Faculty you are, to see where you will be comfortable.

“But after the second year if you still below the CGPA of 1.5, you’re asked to withdraw from the programme and that’s what they call WARF. So, the issue is that you know that currently we did it and we had a total of 1,068 students who were warfed.

” Although opportunity has been given to some of them that are willing to start from second year to see whether they can do well in the various programmes they are in.

“The warf happened at all the categories because what happened here is that law was not implemented. So, when i came i told the officers that look, this is clearly law.

“If you allow these students to go on they don’t have any hope it can cause crisis for you here, those are the ones that will be causing problems using secret cult to cause problem.

“So, if you tell them to go away, they don’t have anything to do in the University they are to go. That’s why i said that we will continue to implement that policy to ensure that we get rid of the ones that are not serious.

“Why we gave them the opportunity to come back was that the University in the past did not actually implement this policy so we decided now to implement it.

“For those that can come back and do better, we would look at their CGPA and see whether they can go up tomorrow to 1.5.

“There are some that you can’t just talk about. For instance, those with 0.5 or 0.6 CGPA can’t be here!. That person is not a student. That person should withdraw from the University. So, those are the kind of things we are implementing. Thank you.”