UNIVERSITY OF JOS

From available records, it is known that the University of Jos first came into existence as a satellite campus of the University of Ibadan in November, 1971. On its establishment, Prof. E.A. Ayandele was appointed as its first Principal and a few staff were seconded from Ibadan to run the school. Its first home was the present Township Campus of the university, which is located along Murtala Mohammed Way, Jos. Actual academic activities started in January 1972 when pre-degree students were admitted. Degree courses in Arts were introduced in October, 1973, while related courses in Science and Education were introduced in 1974. In this same year, the Bauchi road Campus of the University, (which was to subsequently accommodate most of its faculties and serve as its main Campus), was acquired and its development started shortly. Today the University has 9 faculties (Architecture, Law, Natural sciences, Medicine, Pharmacy, Education, Social Sciences, Arts, Post grduate). These faculties are distributed in the three different campuses. The Law, Education, Medicine, Pharmacy, Natural sciences, Architecture and Post graduate faculties are located at the Main Campus along Bauchi road, the Social Sciences and Arts faculties are located at the Permanent side along Farin Gada road. The third campus (referred to as Old campus) is located at the heart of the town along Murtala Mohammed way, this campus acommodates the Centre for Continuing Education ( a training centre for working class people, that can't have time off to attend higher education on full time basis) and Consultancy services of the University.

In October, 1975, the then Federal Military Government announced the establishment of seven new Universities and University College including the University of Jos, in various locations in Nigeria. On granting full autonomy to the new University, the government then appointed Prof. G. Onuaguluchi as its first Vice-Chancellor.

Records also show that the first set of students for the University of Jos Degree programrnes were admitted in the 1976/77 session. In all, a total of 575 students were admitted into the then existing four faculties of Sciences (later split into Sciences & Environmental Sciences), Education, Medical Sciences and Social Sciences (which was later split into the Faculties of Arts, Law and Social Sciences). The Faculty of Medical Sciences was began with just 100 students for courses leading to the first professional examination in Medicine. The teaching of courses leading to the second professional examination in the same field commenced in November 1977 and, despite being faced with very difficult working circumstances, the Faculty of Medical Sciences was able to produce its first set of 66 graduates in Medicine in the 1981/82 session. In the following session, 1977/78 postgraduate programmes were introduced for the first time in the areas of Education, Geography and Zoology.

The academic year, 1978/79, was a memorable one for the University of Jos because it was then that the University produced its first set of 88 graduates from the faculties of Arts, Education and Natural Sciences, after having graduated its first set of 13 postgraduate students from the Faculty of Education the previous session, 1977/78.

Following the end of Prof. G. Onuaguluchi's tenure as Vice-Chancellor at the end of the 19777/78 session, Prof. E. U. Emovon was appointed as his successor. In other aspects of the academic development of the University, the 1979/80 session saw the establishment of the new Faculty of Environmental Sciences, and later in the next session, l980/81 session the emergence of the Faculty of Law with an initial intake of 189. Prior to this, Law had been part of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The 1981/82 session marked the beginning of the movement of major administrative and other academic activities from the Township Campus to the Bauchi Road Campus, which is at present the Main Campus of the institution. By the 1983/84 session, seven full-fledged faculties, in addition to other semi-autonomous teaching and research units, had emerged. The Faculties were Medical Sciences, Arts, Education, Law, Environmental Sciences, Natural Sciences,and Social Sciences, while the support units were School of Post-graduate studies, Department of Preliminary studies (later renamed Division of General and Remedial Studies), Institute of African studies (later renamed Centre for Development Studies), Department of Extramural studies (later renamed Centre for Continuing Education). The last named unit (which was started as one of the pioneering units of the former Jos Campus of the University of Ibadan) has remained essentially a useful public service outfit for the University.

As a result of the decision taken by the Federal Military Government in 1984 to rationalize establishment of new Universities of Technology nationwide, the then Federal University of Technology, Makurdi was merged with the University of Jos. By this decision, the administration of the Makurdi Campus became integrated with that of Jos. For the period it remained under the auspices of University of Jos, between 1984-87, the Makurdi Campus operated 3 Faculties- namely, Agriculture, Engineering and Pharmacy. However, when the campus subsequently regained autonomy and become a full-fledged University of Agriculture in Jan. 1988, its faculty of Pharmacy was transferred to Jos, making it the 8th Faculty in the University of Jos. From its modest beginnings as a satellite Campus of the University of Ibadan, the present University of Jos has expanded both its student and staff population considerably. Available records show that the university started off with only a few dozen pre-degree students and a handful of staff seconded from the University of Ibadan in January, 1972. During the pioneering tenure of Prof. Ayandele, (1972-75), the student population gradually rose to about 576, and by the end of September 1978 when Prof. Onuaguluchi's tenure (1975-78) ended, the figure had steadily risen to 1,392. Similarly, at the end of Prof. Emovon's tenure (1978-85), total student enrollments had reach the figure of 5769.

In consonance with this growth in the student enrollment the senior academic and administrative staff strength of the university also steadily rose from the modest figure in 1972 to the recorded figure of 970 at the end of Prof. Emovon's tenure in September 1985.

Professor Nenfort E. Gomwalk Vice-Chancellor

From 1985 to date, student enrollments have increased from the recorded figure of 6,324 at the beginning of Prof. O. Onazi's tenure in oct, 1985, to 9,263 at the end of his tenure in September, 1989. This figure further increased to reach the peak figure of 16,177 at the end of the tenure of Prof. M.P. Mallum in September, 1993. A corresponding staff complement of 762 has also been recorded, as at September, 1993 - a relative decline from the figure of 970 as at September, 1985. Currently the Student population is about 14,000, and faculty staff population about 1,200 and administrative staff of about 1,300. The Present Vice-Chancellor Professor N.E. Gomwalk  has been able to cut on student intake, to allow for resource sharing, since the available facilities can not accomdate the large number of student's seeking admission, by making sure that only the best are selected among those that apply for admission.

BASIC PHILOSOPHY GOALS AND OBlECTIVES
OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

As is generally the practice in other parts of the world, university education in Nigeria is offered to organize higher education towards meeting society's basic high-level manpower needs in various fields of human endeavour. The development of such manpower needs has been generally accepted as a basic precondition to economic development in particular and modernization in general. In Nigeria, these ideals have been pursued since 1948 through an aggressive programme of expansion of the country's higher education system, the main suppliers of the much needed high-level manpower.

Ambassador Yahya Aliyu Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council

Broadly speaking, university education in Nigeria was designed to achieve the following general objectives (as variously summarized from the statutes establishing different universities in the country).

a) to encourage the advancement of learning and offer all persons (irrespective of race, creed, sex, or political conviction) the opportunity of acquiring high-level education and professional training,

b) to provide relevant courses of *nstruction and other facilities to qualified persons for the pursuit of learning in all its theoretical and practical ramifications, to encourage conduct of research in all fields of learning and human endeavour,

c) to undertake any activities aimed at promoting the highest ideals of learning.

d) In order to identify more closely to the development ideals of the country in the present-day, universities in particular and institutions of higher learning in general have been charged with performing the following specific tasks:

i) training and educating men and women for various professions, vocations and high-level occupations,

ii) teaching citizens to be able to apply their knowledge acquired in schools to solving societal problems,

iii) providing training centres for the promotion of scholarship, research and public service.

From 1948 (when the first institution with university status was established in Ibadan) to date, it has become possible to see the main distinguishing characteristics of University education in Nigeria. Within this period, the university system has evolved and developed in four main phases. The first phase, covering the period (1948-1961) saw the establishment of dominance of the University College, Ibadan. The second phase (1962-1975) witnessed the establishment of the first-generation Universities at Ibadan, Lagos, Ife, Nsukka and Zaria. The third phase (1976-1979) saw the establishment of second-generation Universities at such locations as Kano, Jos, Maiduguri, etc. The fourth-phase (1980-1991) witnessed the birth of third-generation Institutions (mostly State-owned Universities and Universities of Agriculture and Technology) in the States which previously had none. Since 1991, the pace of development in the university system has continued to quicken with several demands being made by state governments as well as private sector entrepreneurs for permission to establish more universities.

From the foregoing discussion, it can be seen that the university development in Nigeria has been an evolutionary process in which changes occur in order to keep up with parallel developments in the socio-political life of the country.

In carrying out their assigned roles in society, the universities are continuously being charged with the task of discovering new and bold ways of tackling problems, while still  maintaining element of continuity with established societal traditions.

Adapted and updated by Daniel Inusa