Bowen University, Iwo: Blazing the trail in academic excellence, online pedagogy
By Timothy Agbor, Osogbo
Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State is not only fulfilling its philosophy as a centre of learning and research of distinction, combining academic excellence with love for humanity, it has also displayed competence in online pedagogy.
While many other tertiary institutions in Nigeria are still battling with how to normalise their distrupted academic calendar owing to the Coronavirus pandemic, this Africa’s largest Baptist University has switched to online mode of learning and even conduct and invigilate exams virtually without ease.
Even when the school was closed down alongside other schools across the country as a result of the global scourge outbreak in 2020, the students have not missed anything as online teaching and learning was adopted with the Bowen Smart School Hub (SSHUB), a platform designed by the school management for robust learning and teacher-student interactions.
The university added another feather to its cap by being the first university to invigilate online examinations of its students.
For the Vice-Chancellor of the faith-based institution, Prof. Joshua Olalekan Ogunwole, the initiatives had been in the pipeline before the outbreak of COVID-19.
Ogunwole said: “We have been talking about Teaching online before COVID-19 came. COVID-19 displayed our level of readiness. We never missed one day of our lecture when COVID-19 came. We transited to virtual mode of teaching immediately the school closed for the pandemic.
“The university developed a virtual learning platform. Bowen became the first university in Nigeria that changed to online mode from the conventional mode of teaching. Also, we remain the only university that invigilated our online examinations. We had one invigilator per forty students. Our students were taken aback when they saw the way we invigilated their exams. The students already have a webcam that records their conducts during the exams.
“Nigeria has gotten to a point where there is nothing we can’t do with technology. COVID-19 won’t go, we have got to adjust to the new normal.
There is no gan saying that the university has been dedicated to the primary goal of raising God-fearing leaders and helping define their future. It is doing everything within its powers to safeguard its high academic standards, shutout ungodliness, and discourage mediocrity in its system.
Addressing journalists on the university campus on Wednesday at a news programme tagged “News Point”, organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Osun state, Prof. Ogunwole said university is about cultivating ideas.
“We started on August 1, 2018. We came with the intention that we must change the work culture of the university. We decided that we will make the curriculum to be up to date. We can’t run the way public university runs. Any private university that wants to run the way public university is run will face financial crisis. We don’t want to find ourselves in financial crisis.
“There is nothing we do in Bowen that doesn’t involve our students. The way to go with this generation (students) is technology. We must change the way we teach if there is going to be a better quality of education. We are still delivering the way we were taught in the 90s.
“We don’t use books, we use e-books, the students read and they discuss. So,we are bringing back the reading culture. We start rejigging our curriculum. The university is working on an app where students can watch the lectures of their lecturers. We also launched an app initiative called GEL. GEL means “Godliness, Excellence and Leadership,” and our students have been excelling in outside competitions and winning laurels in Nigeria and across the globe,” the VC added.
He said all the courses in the institution carry full accreditation.
NEWS BOOM gathered that despite what others may see as exorbitant tuition fees regime operated by the university, many parents, including those of Muslim faith, ensure that their wards become “Bowenites” (current students of Bowen University) and Bowenias (graduated students of Bowen University) because it’s a school that is reputable in high moral academic standard coupled with virtual pedagogical exposures.
