NUC must probe surge in private varsities first-class graduates – Don

The National President of the University of Ilorin Alumni Association, Prof Abdulrasaq Kilani, on Sunday, warned youths against describing education as a scam.

Kilani also decried the large number of first-class graduates being churned out by the private universities, urging the National Universities Commission to step in for quality control.

The Professor of Islamic Studies disclosed this while speaking in an interview with newsmen on Sunday, in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital during the Ogun State UNILORIN Alumni Annual General Meeting and Taorid Odedele Memorial Lecture with the theme “Strengthening Alumni Associations for Societal Development and Growth.”

He explained that people going about with the wrong notion of education as a scam would have themselves to blame later in life.

Kilani said, “How can anyone say that education is a scam? If you want to continue wallowing in poverty and ignorance, then you can say that education is a scam.

“The truth is that education liberates. Education offers you the best opportunity you can ever dream of as an individual. Education helps to uplift in the society.

“If someone wants to be free from poverty, let him be educated but if someone wants to go down, let him avoid going to school or being educated, so it is wrong for anyone to describe education as a scam..”.

He said that it is also important that the NUC look into the large turnout of first class graduates from these institutions for quality control and to ensure that only deserving graduates were truly awarded.

Kilani agreed that the number of first-class being churned out by the universities has increased much more than it was in the past because students now have increased access to information with the age of the internet.

He said, “In our days in school, maybe we had a book to 200 students in a library and you had to go to the library several times without getting the book, that has changed now.