By Samuel Oyadongha & Emem Idio

OTUOKE—VICE Chancellor of the Federal University Otuoke, Prof. Seth Jaja, has warned that any student who cannot cope with the academic standards of the institution in terms of character and academic performance would be shown the way out.

Jaja, who disclosed this during the 6th matriculation of the institution, at Otuoke, announced the award of scholarships to three indigent first year students, including a physical challenge student from the Department of English and Communication Studies of the university.

The Vice Chancellor also donated five wheel chairs to some physically challenged persons from the university’s host community, Otuoke, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s hometown.

According to him: “The gesture is to demonstrate the family university concept and corporate social responsibility of the institution to its host community.”

Addressing the recipients, the Vice Chancellor advised the students to take their studies seriously to retain the scholarship, noting that the scholarship would be reviewed annually based on the academic performance of the beneficiaries.

He warned the students to shun all illegal associations and relationships in and around the university environment,  adding, “Students who cannot cope with the standards of the institution in terms of character and academic performance will be shown the way out.”

On the successes recorded so far, Jaja noted that the matriculation ceremony marked the formal admission of 2,430 students for the 2016/2017 academic sessions into the university.

This, according to him, followed the approval of 16 new additional academic programmes by the National University Commission, NUC, which increased the university intake capacity to 2,500 from the previously 1,500.

He said, “It is worthy to recall that between 2011/2012 and 2015/2016 academic sessions, the university ran 12 academic programmes and this situation limited the number of prospective students offered admissions into the university. On my assumption of duty as Vice Chancellor in last February, the first major challenge I faced was how to bridge this need gap. The need gap so highlighted is more in the faculties and disciplines of Engineering, Management Science and Education which were hitherto not available.

“This challenge was overcome when the NUC, graciously approved 16 new additional programmes, which increased the university carrying capacity from 1500 to 2500, this singular achievement enabled the present administration to frog leap a student population of 2000 to this swarm, cherished and honoured number in 2016/2017 academic session.”