Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University of Education (LASUED), Prof. Bilkis Lafiaji-Okuneye, says its 4,500 prospective students would be subjected to a drug test before admission.
Lafiaji-Okunneye, who narrated the panic a drug-addicted student caused in the school a few months ago, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the measure had become imperative to sanitise the university community of such deviant behaviour.
The educationist said the LASUED authorities had liaised with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to ensure credible results to guide the university in its 2024/25 admission screening.
The VC said no matter how sterling a student’s University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) results were, they would not confer an express admission until the student was certified drug-free.
She acknowledged the extra cost of the drug test to the school but said it was worth it to foster students’ mental and academic coherence and raise the standard for the new university.
“We are a teacher grooming institution; therefore, we aim to instil in our would-be teachers the morals and discipline worthy of a teacher.
“This will enable them to have the same impact on pupils and students alike after their career training here. They will be the nation’s teachers tomorrow, so the institution is taking extra measures to make the best out of them, for you cannot give what you don’t have,” she said.
Lafiaji-Okuneye decried the influx of socially premature students into the universities and tasked parents to informally groom their children on social values.
She said parents should fortify their children with morals capable of warding off peer pressure that could lure them into drug and other deviant behaviours on the campus.
She also admonished parents to allow their children to progress in school at their own pace rather than compel teachers and schools to promote them to higher classes despite their not being qualified for the promotion.
The vice chancellor frowned at parents who patronised special centres to enable their children to pass examinations such as the SSCE and UTME.
Lafiaji-Okunneye said that results obtained from miracle centres remained a fluke and could not instil in people the academic flair needed to persevere in tough times in university.
She regretted the recent surge in student withdrawals from the university, attributing it to those who entered the system with unearned certificates and were, therefore, unable to cope with the university standards.
The VC applauded the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for steadily introducing security features in its examination, saying malpractices such as impersonation and others had declined drastically.
Lafiaji-Okuneye asked the organisers of the National Examination Council NECO) and the West African Examination Council to emulate JAMB to sieve the best from their examinations.
