The management of University of Lagos, UNILAG has distributed a total 104 ipads (tablets) to indigent and visually challenged students during its matriculation ceremony on Friday in Lagos.
The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe made this known in his speech at the ceremony.
While distributing the ipads, he said the essence was to ensure that every student was carried along in the area of online learning.
Dr Jim Ovia, the Founder/ Chairman, Zenith Bank Plc at the university’s 51st convocation, had donated a total of 3,500 tablets (iPad) to support indigent students for their online learning.
The donation came in response to the pleas by the vice chancellor, for support to over 1000 indigent students at the university.
Giving a breakdown of the distribution, Ogundipe said that 50 of the ipads were being given to indigent students, while 54 were for visually impaired students.
He said that the university would continue to give more of the device to identified indigent and other students, whenever the need arose.
Ogundipe noted that meeting the academic needs of every student of the institution had been one of his administration’s core mandates.
According to him, management of the university will continue to do all within its power, in providing a level playing field for academic excellence for all students.
“It is our duty to strive to enable the disadvantaged to access education, especially in this era of technology.
“We are glad that this is coming at the right time and that is why we will waste no time in ensuring that those who truly deserve this are given promptly for maximum use.
“We have a total of 3500 indigent students, but some of them have already graduated.
“A total of 3,500 of the tablets were donated by Dr Jim Ovia. So, what we have now done is to deploy some of the tablets, precisely 500 of them, to the library for students use.
“Those who want to use them could go there, borrow and use for about two weeks and return them, after proper documentation, just like somebody going to the library to borrow books.
“This practice will equally go a long way to assist the students access education in any field, as well as enhance their performance, because of course, as we all know, not everyone can afford these gadgets ,” Ogundipe said.
