The Teacher Makes All the Difference in UI’s Dr. Afusat Jagun Jubril

Here too!

No subjective disposition to her would make any journalist deny her recognition for standing out in the crowd. She has such a ringing, piercing, authoritative and scholarly voice that would make such impossible. Participants at the on-going 2019 Association of Commonwealth Universities, (ACU) Summer School at the University of Ibadan, (UI) would attest to all these about her.

The opening ceremony was a star studded occasion attended by established university figures and academics, especially the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Idowu Olayinka. He did not attend the opening ceremony. Rather, Prof Joseph Babalola, the highly regarded Dean of the UI Postgraduate School stood in for him. Whether the UI VC was physically there or not, he is a big player in ACU, being a member of its governing council.

Notwithstanding this high profile attendance, Dr Afsat Jagun Jubril’s voice rose distinctively, problematising as she marched on, never forgetting what should be emphasized, amending her tone at the right corner and, generally, in control of the audience. It is an uncommon dexterity, even in UI where exemplars in academe are everywhere, so to say.

She has been in and out of the country, she said in a quick response to a question, obviously rushing to catch up with something somewhere from the UI Hotels venue of the ACU School. The resume on each of the distinguished resource persons assembled to run the Summer School says of her as being a lecturer in the Department of Veterinary Pathology in UI’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Her areas of research are listed as clinical pathology, environmental toxicology and climate change. She is credited with more than 40 peer-reviewed articles in academic journals classified in the text as reputable.

The hint here is that there is something natural about her distinctive ability to captivate her audience in a way that proves the claim that the teacher makes all or most of the difference in learning.

All the attendees at the ACU Summer School

Meanwhile, what might be stopping UI’s Department of Drama or whatever name it is called from forming a troupe and performing all over the country? The Drama programmes at UI, UNICAL, UNIJOS, ABU, Zaria and UNIPORTH used to be particularly good. That was before the centres could no longer hold in most universities. But, it seems nothing has affected the UI programme thereto. The very short performance they staged at the opening ceremony of the Summer School was absolutely inviting. Its reel geopolitics worth in Nigerian foreign policy can be a deal!