By Tony Okafor
Universities exist to produce graduates with knowledge, practical skills, and professional competence. If reports that students at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University are being taught “alternative to practical” because laboratories lack reagents and essential equipment are accurate, then serious questions arise about whether the institution is meeting that obligation.
Science cannot be mastered through theory alone. Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Medical Sciences, and other laboratory-based disciplines require hands-on training. Students denied that experience risk being placed at a disadvantage in the workplace and in further academic pursuits.
Medical education is especially practical. Reports suggesting that students have limited or no access to cadavers for anatomy sessions, if true, raise legitimate questions about the quality of training.
Equally concerning are reports that some final-year students allegedly pool funds to buy reagents and send samples to external laboratories for analysis. If accurate, this would amount to shifting an institutional responsibility to students who have already paid tuition and other statutory fees.
There are also claims of inadequate lecture space for departments running undergraduate, postgraduate diploma, master’s, and doctoral programmes. Academic excellence is difficult to sustain where students lack access to adequate classrooms.
Reports of erratic electricity supply to computer laboratories are equally troubling. In a technology-driven era, students cannot compete effectively without regular access to functional digital learning facilities.
Beyond infrastructure, concerns have also been raised about examination conditions and admission processes. Academic integrity is central to the credibility of any university. Once public confidence in examinations or admissions is weakened, an institution’s reputation is inevitably at risk.
A university’s standing is not measured by renovated gatehouses or beautified entrances alone. Its true legacy lies in the competence of the graduates it produces.
COOU’s management owes students, parents, and the public a clear, evidence-based response. If these reports are inaccurate, verifiable facts should be provided to address public concern. If they are accurate, immediate corrective measures are required.
The primary victims of institutional decline are students. Every graduating class leaves with a certificate bearing the university’s name, and also bears the consequences of the quality of education it received.
Students deserve well-equipped laboratories with adequate reagents, conducive classrooms, reliable electricity for digital learning, modern teaching facilities, and genuine practical training — not a substitute called “alternative to practical.”
The future of COOU will not be defined by the appearance of its entrance gates, but by what happens inside its classrooms, laboratories, and lecture halls.
