PanNigerianNews 
By Sunday ADEPOJU
The Students’ Union Government of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State has urged the state government to suspend all plans to rename the institution from LAUTECH to LAU.
The student body, in a release made available to newsmen, proved that the majority of the students are against the proposed name, “LAU”.
Instead, the union urged state government to fast track reopening of the institution and improve on the facilities on ground, increase the work force, among others.
The state government, recently, had proposed to rename the institution due to the proposal to make the institution a conventional one.
It would be recalled that on Monday, March 14, 2022, the National Universities Commission (NUC), after a resource verification visit was carried out by their panel of experts to some proposed academic programmes, approved thirteen (13) different courses which include five (5) education and humanities studies: library and information science (BLIS), sociology (B.Sc), English language and literary studies (B.A), philosophy (B.A) and history (B.A).
According to the statement jointly signed by the President, Com. Anuoluwa Adeboye; General Secretary, Com. Ibrahim Opaleke; PRO, Gabriel Michael, “A university of technology is a highly complex organizational entity consisting diverse but highly specialised units. The National Policy on Education lays emphasis on the role of universities in the promotion of national unity.
“To this end, the policy requires that all undergraduates should be given broad based education in addition to their areas of specialisations. Such broad based education includes a thorough understanding of the society in which the students live.
“The provision of these various skills and requirements can best be given in a university of technology. Technology exists in a social and cultural contexts. It deals not merely with technical skills but also very often with social skills. In order to put technology in appropriate social context, it is important that certain disciplines which are usually regarded as humanities should be integrated into university of technology.”
The student body advised the state government led by Gov. Seyi Makinde to rescind his proposal to change the nomenclature of the institution, saying that adding non-technology courses should not necessitate the proposed changed of name.
The statement said, “LAUTECH can start new courses or be changed to a conventional university without affecting or causing any alteration in the name, thereby fulfilling part of the second phase development of the school.”
Citing examples of universities of technology running non-technology courses without altering their names, the statement read: “The renowned universities of technology across the country and the globe are offering courses such as education, social sciences, art and law. For example: Enugu State University of Science and Technology offers courses in law, education, social sciences and management sciences; Bells University of Technology offers courses in accounting, economics, finance and banking, human resources management and marketing; Federal University of Technology, Minna runs courses in education.
“Tallinn University of Technology , Estonia (Taltech) has courses in arts, law, social sciences; Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand offers courses such as history, languages, law, education, psychology, arts, journalism.”
The body added, “The annihilating effect of renaming the University which is currently the best state University in Nigeria is enormous and unquantifiable on all the holders of the certificates of the University (Alumni), students, workers, host communities and all other stakeholders.
“The response of the students extracted from an online survey on the proposed renaming of LAUTECH conducted by the Students’ Union Government on February 9, 2022 reveals a 99.74% (19,950 reponse count) opposing the renaming of LAUTECH.
“We pray that the Oyo State House of Assembly Committee on Education should immediately order the suspension of the proposed renaming of LAUTECH and thus look into the salient and important matters confronting the University at the moment which include: the strike embarked upon by the staff unions since February 14, 2022 which has lasted over 5 months and in continuation; the unavailability of lecture halls and standard clinical and medical laboratories for the medical students that were transferred to the College of Health Sciences after the sole ownership since November, 2020; the lecturer to student ratioa and the need to employ more lecturers into the University; bursary and scholarship for indigent students and grants for student’s projects and research.”
