202 LASPOTECH Students expelled for cultism, exam malpractice

The Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH), Ikorodu, on Friday said it had expelled 202 students for cultism and examination malpractice between 2015 and 2018.

Mr Samuel Sogunro, the institution’s Rector in his report to the 8th Congregation of the polytechnic, said 183 students were expelled for cultism while 19 were sent packing for exam malpractice.

Sogunro said 88 of the 183 students were in the School of Full-Time Studies while 95 were in the School of Part-Time Studies.

According to him, nine of the 19 students dismissed for exam malpractice were full-time and 10 were part-time students.

“The present administration has zero tolerance for cultism and the Polytechnic Governing Council has directed that the names of the culprits should be published in a national daily and that would be done soon,” he said.

Sogunro noted that the management had instituted four types of students empowerment programmes to expose students to entrepreneurial skills and empower them while in school and after graduation.

He named the programmes as Agriculture Students’ Empowerment Scheme (ASES), Industrial Technology Students Empowerment Scheme (IT-SES),
Students Projects’ Empowerment Scheme (SPES) and Employable Skills ‘Acquisition Empowerment Scheme (ESAES).

On the school’s academic programmes, the rector said 66 out of the 67 programmes offered by the polytechnic were due for re-accreditation and that the accreditation team would be visiting by third quarter of the year.

“Towards the accreditation, it is worthy to inform the congregation that the State Government has released the sum of N542 million out of the N750 million promised for infrastructure and manpower development.

“The polytechnic, on its parts, has conducted mock accreditation in the affected programmes and departments of the institution ahead of the main accreditation,” he said.

On staff development, Sogunro noted that 129 staff members were promoted in 2014/2015 while 250 were promoted in the 2015/2016 exercise.

He said that since the last congregation in May 2015, the institution with the approval of the state government, appointed 13 Chief Lecturers and employed 89 academic staff members to fill existing vacancies.

The rector said: “The polytechnic is not relenting in its effort on staff career advancement. This is basically one of the best ways to sustain and improve the competence of personnel in producing skilled and practical oriented manpower for commerce and industry.”

Sogunro also noted that the polytechnic had remitted all pension contributions of all staff and 5 per cent Redemption Fund of past service retirement benefits up to March 2018.

According to him, the 20 months unremitted redemption fund due to paucity of funds by the last administration to the tune of N189 million had been cleared by the current administration.

“The institution has doubled its effort to expand available facilities so as to improve high ranking status among tertiary institutions in Nigeria.”

He said the Academic Board of the polytechnic, at its meeting on February 22, had also constituted an Ad-Hoc committee with a mandate to interpret the Lagos State 2018 Law on the use of Yoruba as an official language.

The committee, according to Sogunro, is mandated to guide the management on how to properly apply the law without any violation.