Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja has matriculated 3,200 regular students for its 2018/2019 academic session.
Speaking at the matriculation ceremony in Lokoja, Rector of the polytechnic, Prof Muhammed Atureta, urged the newly admitted students to be focused, disciplined, innovative, hardworking and eschew all forms of social vices throughout their stay in the institution.
He particularly warned the students that the institution has zero tolerance for cultism, prostitution, indecent dressing, examination malpractice, stealing, violence and fighting.
“Measures are being put in place to tackle cultism and bring it to the barest minimum if not eradicate it completely. This would be done through the cooperation of security agencies.
“To our fresh students, this is an opportunity for you to lay a solid foundation for your future. I implore you to make judicious use of the resources made available through the polytechnic by the state government,” he said.
He challenged the new students to take their rightful places in nation building, social emancipation and national development by being committed to their studies and researches.
Prof Atureta said the management has provided conducive learning environment for the students to enable them complete their programmes in record time.
According to him, the polytechnic management was doing everything possible to ensure early completion of the renovation work on hostels at its main campus earlier approved by Governor Yahaya Bello.
In her remarks at the ceremony, Kogi State Commissioner for Education, Mrs Rosemary Osikoya emphasised the need for more focus on science and technology based education in the country.
Osikoya urged the Rector to work out modalities of ensuring that the ratio of admissions between the sciences and humanities in the polytechnic should be 70:30 respectively in order produce more technologically based graduates that would offer solutions to various problems bedevilling the state and country at large.
She particularly challenged the polytechnic to come up with ideas on how to tackle environmental challenges in the state, especially the menace of recurrent flooding which had led to loss of lives and property in the past.
Credit: Daily Trust
