Medical school, teaching hospital in FUTA soon

The Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Prof. Adebiyi Daramola, has said that the institution will soon establish a medical school as well as a teaching hospital to complement its School of Basic Sciences.

Adebiyi said this on Monday following the National Universities Commission’s approval granted to the university to establish a School of Health and Health Technology.

According to Adebiyi, the new department will take off next academic session with courses, such as Physiology, Anatomy, Dental Technology and Optometry.

Daramola said, “We’ve received the nod to set up departments of Anatomy and Physiology having previously established a Department of Biochemistry.

So, we are starting with degrees in the basic medical sciences and ultimately to end up with a teaching hospital.

These two new departments are precursors of a medical school because we already have Biochemistry in the School of Sciences.

‘‘Besides, we cannot have health-related courses without having the core, which is medicine. You cannot have optometry and other ancillary courses without a Teaching Hospital, which is at the core.

Some of the courses we are starting with are basic medical sciences. If you are familiar with the training of medical doctors, they start with what is called basic medical sciences.

It is when they are well-grounded in these, that they go to the clinical,” Daramola said.

Researches shows girls lead boys in academicachievement globally

CONSIDERABLE attention has been paid to how
boys’ educational achievements in science and
math compare to girls’ accomplishments in
those areas, often leading to the assumption
that boys outperform girls in these areas.
Now, using international data, researchers
at the University of Missouri, United States, and
the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland,
have determined that girls outperform boys in
educational achievement in 70 per cent of the
countries they studied regardless of the level of
gender, political, economic or social equality.

Curators Professor of Psychological
Sciences in the College of Arts and Science at
MU, David Geary, said: “We studied the
educational achievement levels of 1.5 million
15-year-olds from around the world using data
collected between 2000 and 2010,” “Even in
countries where women’s liberties are severely
restricted, we found that girls are outperforming
boys in reading, mathematics, and science
literacy by age 15, regardless of political,
economic, social or gender equality issues and
policies found in those countries.”

According to the data, boys fall behind girls
in overall achievement across reading,
mathematics, and science in 70 percent of the
countries studied. Boys outperform girls in only
three countries or regions: Colombia, Costa Rica
and the Indian state, Himachal Pradesh. Boys
and girls had similar educational achievements
in the United States and United Kingdom.
In countries known for relatively low gender
equality ratings, such as Qatar, Jordan and the
United Arab Emirates, the educational
achievement gap is relatively large and favours
girls.

The one exception worldwide is among
students in economically developed nations
where high achieving boys outperform high
achieving girls, researchers said.
“With the exception of high-achievers, boys
have poorer educational outcomes than girls
around the world, independent of social equality
indicators,” said Gijsbert Stoet, reader in
psychology at the University of Glasgow.

“Results show that a commitment to gender
equality on its own is not enough to close the
achievement gaps in global education; the gap
is not increasing. Although it is vital that we
promote gender equality in schools, we also
need to make sure that we’re doing more to
understand why these gaps, especially among
boys, persist and what other policies we can
develop to close them.”

The study also has important implications for
educational policy, the researchers said.
“The data will influence how policymakers
think about the options available,” said Geary.

“For example, to increase levels of equal
opportunities in education. We believe that
policymakers and educators should not expect
that broad progress in social equality will
necessarily result in educational equality. In
fact, we found that with the exception of high
achievers, boys have poorer educational
outcomes than girls around the world,
independent of social equality indicators.

Therefore, in order to effectively close the gaps
in achievement, education policymakers should
consider factors other than political, economic
and social equality, and especially as related to
boys’ overall achievement and high-achieving
girls’ interest in mathematics and science.”

Pledge to restore discipline, revitalise learning at FSTC

Says school’s workshops in comatose
A RECENT visit at Federal Science and
Technical College (FSTC) Yaba, Lagos, revealed that the school is undergoing slight infrastructural and human transformation.

If only government and corporate bodies would liaise with the college, the new Director/ Principal, Chris Ugoji, said the culture and excellence, which unity schools are known for, would be restored.

When The Guardian sought the view of Ugoji, who is also a Director at the Federal Ministry of Education, in his Yaba office, he said the school’s infrastructure was in a sorry state when he assumed duty, but for the intervention of Parents Teachers Association (PTA).

Worse among all are the school’s workshops, about 12 of them, which he said, are up to standard compared to those in tertiary institutions but lack electricity to power the machines.

According to Ugoji: “When I assumed duty, I didn’t like what I saw, there was total indiscipline among the students coupled with the issue of inappropriate dressing, such as flying of shirts and wearing of slippers.

All these had been tackled heavily because they are not in the culture of unity schools.
“So, as a team, we agreed it cannot be
business as usual. We decided to inform the PTA of our mission to restore discipline because where there is indiscipline, there would be chaos and where there is chaos, academic activities will suffer.

Secondly, we discovered that some students are not paying school fees, and so we have introduced measures to ensure that students pay fees and every other thing and it’s been successful so far to the glory of God.”

He continued: “We have 12 workshops in FSTC Yaba that can compete favourably with any of the universities in the country.
These workshops are used to service 19 trades, although they are very powerful, but electricity to power them is a
major challenge.

So, we are seeking for assistance/partnership to power these
machines so that the workshops can be used to teach students and also to service the need of the country in technical and vocational education.”

Ugoji further stated that in the area of
infrastructure, the PTA has helped in decking the female hostel and also installing CCTV in the college, which has helped to improve the security so far, adding: “They also assisted with
classroom furniture, water, clinic, among
others.”

However, in spite of these shortfalls, Ugoji
hinted that the students’ academic prowess still gleams. He said: “At the yearly general meeting of
Federal Unity Colleges (FUC) held at Ilorin, the score card of FUC was made available an FSTC Yaba came overall second in the area of NABTEB. We also did exceptionally well in West
African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and National Examination Council (NECO).”

To achieve the objectives of the technical
session of the school, he said: “All we need to do is revive the workshop and power the machines. We already have competent, qualified, seasoned, administrators and members of staff
who can on their own head any school in this country.

We need facilities as we lack adequate infrastructure needed to impart the right skills and knowledge in a science and technical school.”

http://m.ngrguardiannews.com