Education
By Ibukun Emiola
Ibadan, Aug. 10, 2018 (NAN) Prof. Omar Rahaman, the first doctoral degree student of Geology at the University of Ibadan, on Friday described Prof. Mosobolaje Oyawoye as the pioneer of the development of mining and geosciences in Nigeria.
Rahaman stated this at the colloquium held in honour of Oyawoye at the Department of Geology, University of Ibadan.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the colloquium tagged, ‘Geology of Oyawoye,’’ was organised by the Nigeria Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS), Association of Ibadan University Geologists (AIUG) and Department of Geology, University of Ibadan.
NAN also reports that Oyawoye is Africa’s first professor of geology.
Rahaman, a professor of Geology at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, also stated that the government needed to spend more on education, especially on research.
“Government has to understand who is laying the golden egg; today our universities are not able to train the calibre of geoscientists people like Baba Oyawoye trained 60 years ago.
“The training then was robust to prepare me for the work but today there are no graduates that we train that will leave here and be ready for work.
“ We now have to introduce all kinds of additional training to prepare these graduates for employment.
“We now bring people from China; in the 80s, the Chinese came to Nigeria to learn how to interpret data we taught them; today to do work in Nigeria, we invite Chinese to come.
` We need to invest in the system so that the graduates we are producing can perform,’’ he said.
In his remarks, Oyawoye said he was grateful to God for his achievements and the lives he had impacted on.
“The Geology Department at Ibadan is the first in the country as a whole.
“ Since the beginning, it has been in the forefront of knowledge in geology in Nigeria and many of the alumni are in the most prestigious institutions like NNPC, geological agencies and so on and they are still in the forefront today,” Oyawoye said.
The forum featured presentation of academic papers by students of Oyawoye who had further developed most of his pioneering works. (NAN)
IBK/OJO
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(Edited by Mufutau Ojo)