By Etop Ekanem

When choosing to attend an institution and continue one’s education, parents and students often look for an environment in which their values and mission are supported and encouraged by their peers and administrators. Many parents feel more comfortable sending their children to a faith-based institution because of certain social vices among youths of today.

While there are many faith-based tertiary institutions across the nation, only a few have that serene environment coupled with inculcating quality education with moral values. One of such universities is Augustine University—the first Catholic university in Lagos.

Augustine University is an emerging faith-based tertiary institution that ensures that parents, students and the nation at large have access to quality and improved education variegated with development of moral values and offer the world knowledgeable persons for whom virtue in all its ramifications will be an important pursuit in his life at home, in the workplace and among superiors and subordinates.

Speaking at the just concluded second matriculation ceremony of the university for the 2016/2017 academic session which took place at the school auditorium in Ilara-Epe, Lagos State, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Steve Afolami, explained that education had always been what the Catholic Church stood for.

Prof. Steve Afolami

He noted that one of the core values of the institution is to inculcate moral discipline for a better Nigeria.

On its nascent years of existence, Prof. Afolami stated that the institution has been a success in two phases. “The phase of constructing the buildings, roads and equipping the buildings to provide the first-grade facilities that have placed the University in an enviable position among its pairs, and the post-approval phase which began only on March 05 2015. The University is therefore too young to begin to beat its chest about achievements. All the same, it will not be immodest to speak the truth about what goes on within its walls.

For a start, it ran its first session hitch-free in spite of the harsh Nigerian environment. It has computerized systems that enable students to handle their assignments from wherever they happen to be; a system that enables the student to monitor and know for sure what his performance is in continuous assessment ahead of examinations; a system that publishes students’ results two weeks after the last paper has been written; a system that enables parents to view and follow up their children’s results in examinations through pass-worded entrance into the particular child’s result page on the portal within hours of Senate approval; a system that rewards excellence through part-tuition scholarship awards as incentive to sustainable scholarship.

Also speaking at the matriculation ceremony,  Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, explained that education is a very important investment every parent/guardian should make to put their children in pole position for an assured better future.

• Etop is of Vanguard Newspapers