Bingham varsity enrols 2,318 students, to create self-reliance curriculum

Bingham University has matriculated 2,318 students for the 2022/23 academic session in various courses, comprising 1,838 undergraduates and 480 postgraduate students.

The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Williams Qurix, announced this at the 18th Matriculation Ceremony of the school in Karu on Thursday.

Qurix explained that the school had focused on the 30 per cent content based curriculum with focus on self-reliance skills.

According to him, the National Universities Commission (NUC) unveiled the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMAS), which provides 70 per cent content of curriculum while institutions will provide 30 per cent content of the curriculum.

“Each discipline has a number of programmes and each programme has 70 per cent of its curriculum already designed by NUC, which is called the Core Curriculum for Minimum Academic Standard.

“The focus is on new knowledge on entrepreneurship; the focus is doing away with things we have reconjugated years after years so we have removed them, now the 30 per cent gives you a chance.

“For us in Bingham University, we have a chance to design programmes and courses that will focus on centralised skills, for example we are doing something on Discipline Specific Entrepreneurship which means each discipline will have an entrepreneurship programme tailored made to its own area.

“Students in English Department will have English Entrepreneurship Studies, so gone are those days that there are no skill to some courses people are reading, it is no longer that way .

“So, we have to design to suite our own purpose so anybody graduating from the university knows where to major in terms of skills,” he said.

Qurix added that this would also help to provide a sound entrepreneurial education for innovation and creativity to all students of the institution.

He charged the students to abide by the laws guiding operations of the school as the school had zero tolerance for any form of social vices such as cultism, drug abuse, bullying and others.

He said that over 5,000 candidates applied for the university out of which 2,318 were granted admission to study various courses in the 2022/23 academic year, which he said outweighed admission of 1,976 students in the 2021/22 academic session.

Meanwhile, the Guest Lecturer, Dr Marvelous Aigbedion, Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Leadership Studies of the school, tasked institutions on the need for entrepreneurial education in universities.

Aigbedion, who was speaking on the topic titled: “Entrepreneurship, Social Mobility and the Christian View” charged the country to focus more on technical knowhow of the students in various higher institution.

“There is much unhealthy competition among the human race. Every student wants to be best in his or her own field but there is a place for everyone in their chosen careers. For you to fly, you must have a place.

“The major challenge facing us as a country is the technical knowhow on how to harness the best brains for the benefit of our country. We must learn to look at the process of how to fly.

“We must begin to concentrate in this direction by providing entrepreneurial education in our universities that would help students in their career path,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that of the 2,318 admissions, Science and Technology Department got 328 students, Social Sciences 286, Clinical Sciences 265, health sciences 424 and Pharmaceutical Sciences 61.

Others are Basic and Medical Sciences 117, Arts 37, Law 75, Education 15, Environmental Science 89, Administration 141 and Postgraduate School 480.