Lagos varsity: Prospective students must undergo drug tests before admission – VC

The Vice-Chancellor, Lagos State University of Education, LASUED, Prof. Bilkis Lafiaji-Okuneye, has said 4,500 prospective students would be subjected to drug tests before being admitted in the school.

Lafiaji-Okunneye, who narrated the panic a drug-addicted student created in the school months ago, said that the measure had become imperative to sanitise the university community.

The educationist said that LASUED authorities had liaised with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, in the university’s 2024/25 admissions.

The LASUED boss stressed that no matter how sterling a student’s University Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, and the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, SSCE, results were, it would not confer the student an express admission until he or she was certified drug-free.

She acknowledged the extra cost of the drug tests to the school, but said that it was worth doing to foster students’ mental and academic coherence, and raise the standard for the new university.

“We are a teacher grooming institution, therefore we aim to instill in our would-be teachers the morals and discipline worthy of a teacher.

This will enable them to impact the same on pupils and students alike after their career training here.

“These are going to be the nation’s teachers tomorrow so the institution is taking extra measures to make the best out of them, for you cannot give what you don’t have,” she said.

Lafiaji-Okuneye decried the influx of socially premature students into universities, and tasked parents to informally groom their children on social values.