Now today on Danny world, we’re having a very important personality right here with us. A man of noble character. A man who is indeed diligent in service. A man responsible for precise dissemination of information in the university of Benin. It is indeed a privilege to have Mr Michael Osasuyi the public relations officer (P.R.O) of the great university of Benin live on Danny world. Here’s how the interview went. Enjoy!
Danny: You’re welcome to Danny world sir.
Mr Osasuyi: Thank you Danny.
Danny: Sir, please officially, introduce yourself to us.
Mr Osasuyi: Okay. My name is Michael .O. Osasuyi and I am the incumbent public relations officer of the university of Benin.
Danny: Great. Sir, what has the experience been like for you so far as the P.R.O?
Mr Osasuyi: Hmm-mm…It’s been challenging, interesting and most of all it’s been God all the way.
Danny: Any challenges?
Mr Osasuyi: Erm-mm…For me, it’s an assignment one needs to rise up to the occasion all the time. When you’ve been saddled with the responsibility of carrying out a task, the task itself is a challenge and the only way to be a victor is by doing the job required. Challenge is the job. You need to inform people at the right time and for the right purpose.
Danny: Hmm-mm very true. People should see their jobs like this. Now if you were to rate yourself, would you say you’ve been very effective at the job so far?
Mr Osasuyi: You see when it comes to rating, I can’t rate myself at this point. It’s the individual who receives this information who is in the right position to rate us. But if I were to rate myself, I would say we have done quite well. We always send out updates to inform students every now and then.
Danny: Hmm-mm fair enough. Sir, this year, the method of admitting students changed drastically. Candidates who scored really high above the benchmark were not given admission. What do you have to say to that please?
Mr Osasuyi: Now this year, so many persons scored above 50. When you say ‘scored high’ what was the department’s cut off point? Every department has its own cut off. Paraventure, someone applied for medicine assuming the cut off was 50 and this person scored 60 or 62 as the case may be. Now to that person, he scored very high and should be given admission whereas the cut off for medicine this year was 73. Now how do you handle that kind of situation? Same thing for law. Law’s cut off was 74 this year. Now imagine you scored 60 and another person scored 74. Definitely, the one with 74 has better chances of getting admitted on merit.
In law for example, those who applied for law and crossed 50 were not less than 3500 and the number of students to be admitted according to the law quota was not more than 130 students. In that case, someone who scores above 50 will be grieved he wasn’t admitted but it’s the sad truth. Those who got admitted were admitted based on merit. They were admitted because they beat the department’s cut off.
Danny: Hmm-mm…do you think this would continue for a while?
Mr Osasuyi: It depends on some factors. The cut off may either increase or decrease in coming years. The cut offs for 2013 differs from the one currently.
Danny: Alright sir. Glad you cleared the air on that. Now sir, some students have complained about their results in recent times not being commensurate to the efforts they put in during exams. Students feel they work so hard and did very well in their exams but their results doesn’t seem to reflect that. Do you think it’s an error on the part of the lecturers or perhaps the students are not just studying enough?
Mr Osasuyi: Hmm-mm…The thing is, some of us here were also once students and we’re still learning. Now when it comes to examinations, if you sat for an exam and you’re confident enough that you know what you’ve written and you’re certain it was what was required, then you’ll get your grades. At times, students seem to know more than themselves and in the course of writing, they write out of point and submit a very full booklet without points believing they did very well. It’s a big problem.
Now my advice is, when you write an exam and you believe you did very well, approach your lecturers or course advisers to know your weak points. But students always carry news that are not authentic. Your lecturers are not monsters. They don’t have two heads. You have every right to approach your lecturer as far as you’re not unruly. Whether the student is doing well or not, we should not blame it on the lecturers unless we make further investigations and we find out the student was actually victimised. Then we can probe the lecturers of such department.
Danny: Lecturers are not at fault you mean?
Mr Osasuyi: No they are not except in some rare cases.
Danny: Alright then. Now about our hostels. Some weeks back, some S.U.G executives came out to probe the initial list of students allocated hostel spaces. They were claims that these students were staff kids. How true is this sir?
Mr Osasuyi: Wow…Now when you say staff kids. These children staying in the hostels, are they students or staffs?
Danny: Apparently, students.
Mr Osasuyi: Good. Now you discover that anyone given hostel space is a full time student. Virtually, every student of the university of Benin would love to stay in the hostel but we’ve got limited spaces so we’ve gotta prioritise. First, we give preference to the 100 level students and then the final year students before the other levels are considered. So the speculation of staff children being given hostel spaces is not true.
Do a sample of all the names of these so called staff kids, you would discover these children don’t even bear the names of these staffs. Students are allocated spaces not staffs. So if you were given hostel space this year, it’s because you were fortunate enough to get this year. Next year may not be like that.
Danny: Alright sir. Good thing you cleared the air on that. Final question. To our graduated students, what advice do you have for them? One word for them as they go out to face the real world.
Mr Osasuyi: It’s simple. Remain focus and remember nothing good comes easy. There is a need for them to contribute their own quota to the growth of the country so that history will always remember them for good.
Danny: Hmm-mm wise words. Thank you for coming on Danny world sir.
Mr Osasuyi: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
So there you have it. That was Mr Michael Osasuyi the public relations officer of the university of Benin. I’m sure you grabbed a thing or two from this interview. Please note that this interview will be on the next publication. If you wanna be on the show just like him, all you need do is contact Danny on BBM 2A7B9F68 to arrange an interview. Perhaps you have a product you wanna advertise or something you just want to share with the world whatsoever. Just reach Danny and who knows??? You might just be on Danny world. It’s the blog that brings you the total package. This is Danny world…
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