By Bianca Iboma-Emefu
The vice-chancellor of Mountaintop University, Makogi Oba, Ogun State, Prof. Elijah Ayolabi, has urged parents and guardians of students of the university to ensure that their wards align with the institution’s training mode so that they can move Nigeria out of the woods to a position of destiny and distinction in Africa and the rest of the world.
“Our students are listed among the new generation of leaders produced till date. We are focusing on moving Nigeria from darkness to limelight,” he said.
The VC gave this counsel at the eighth matriculation of Mountaintop University, featuring freshmen of the 2022/2023 academic session, both undergraduate and postgraduate. The institution matriculated a total of 502 students, 253 in the College of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, 222 in the College of Basic and Applied Science and 27 in the School of Postgraduate Studies.
While delivering his welcome address, the VC said the institution is committed to the training and education of persons imbued with new value systems, learning and working ethics with a resolute commitment to the norms and spirit of excellence.
“What is unique about the university is that the institution established a programme, a skilled labour they can earn an income from, Every Students a Musician (ESM). Apart from this skill of learning how to play a musical instrument perfectly, they are impacted with entrepreneurial and vocational skill in it’s quest to provide the much needed qualified, competent, skilled and conscientious manpower that would steer away the country from it’s present culture of unwholesome attitude.”
He added that Nigeria is faced with the challenges of coping with unemployment, poverty and meeting the multiple conflicting demands of Nigeria youths to change the narrative,we ensure they specialized in playing a musical instruments while pursuing their academic fleece.
Prof Ayolabi averred that MTU have engaged a mode of training that worked, such that “our products are flying around the world today, showcasing the validity of a total well rounded students,there are great testimonies from our alumni.
The mode, he said, had found its foundation in MTU well-defined Mandate, which was to raise a new generation of leaders through a qualitative and life-applicable training system that focuses on Value and Skill Development amongst others.
“We recognize spirituality as an asset of inestimable value. According to scriptures, spirituality is profitable unto all things and to be spiritually-minded is life and peace,” the VC explained.
Prof Ayolabi highlighted that for our graduates to be competitive in the employment market, they are made to undergo mandatory training in International IT and E-Business Professional Skills and Certification through our partnership with New Horizons system Nigeria, a leading ICT training and examination testing institute.
“Today, MTU University produces the most employable graduates in Nigeria and would continued to develop and impact positively for greater heights. This is why we focus on equipping the persons of our students, so they can continue to generate impact in their various vocations in life and that without prejudice to the pursuit of academic excellence,” he remarked.
The university has continued to receive external validations of the positive impact of her unique approach to tertiary education,” enthused the vice chancellor.
He said that the matriculation ceremony signified an undertaking on the part of the university that the students, who were matriculating, would in four or five years become full-grown students with the best of education coupled with character, entrepreneurial prowess, an appreciable level of spirituality, imbued with leadership capacity, and life-applicable skills.
While regaling the audience with the outstanding milestones recorded by MTU in recent times, Ayolabi assured that MTU was committed to making her graduates expert thinkers, leader-managers, and hyper resourceful technocrats in all fields of human endeavour.
“The performance of our graduates in the world of work has consistently validated this commitment. Employers feedback on our graduates in employment attest to their enviable character and skill in the workplace,” he revealed.
The Registrar and Secretary to Council, Mr Olufemi Oyewole, stated that the matriculation ceremony was significant because it completed the students’ admission process and bestowed full rights and privileges of studentship on matriculated students, having subscribed to MTU allegiance to the ethos of the institution.
Oyewole said that as a faith-based university, MTU’s philosophy and pillars were deeply rooted in Biblical principles and directed towards effecting change in the nation’s educational sector’s recovery process and the restoration of our nation’s dignity.
“By the grace of God, the single-minded pursuit of the revolutionary mandate of the University by the Board, Management, faculty and staff has made MTU unique among universities in Nigeria,”