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HIV/AIDS REPORTING
Scholars and Saints
Ayodele Ale Saturday, Punch, July 14, 2007
Preparations are in top gear for Saturday's second convocation ceremony of up-class Covenant University, Ota, on the outskirts of Lagos. Banners announcing the event, whose theme is The Release of the Eagles, are all over the campus. Painters, electricians, gardeners, cleaners and other workers have been busy trying to give the campus a facelift ahead of the ceremony.
But barely 10 days to the D-day, as potential graduates were busy processing their clearance in different departments of the school, the final list of those to graduate was still being compiled.
Investigations conducted by Saturday Punch however revealed that the release of the final year students would not depend only on their academic performance or how much debt they owe the school.
Rather, one requirement that seems to be giving some students the jitters is that they must test negative to pregnancy and HIV (human immuno-deficiency virus) before they are allowed to graduate.
Checks by the Saturday Punch revealed that the students have been streaming to the school's health centre in the past few days to undergo compulsory pregnancy and HIV tests, without which they would not be allowed to graduate from the school.
A final year female student, who spoke under anonymity for fear of the school authorities, told Saturday Punch, “The most scary part of our clearance process is the HIV/AIDS and pregnancy test we are expected to undergo. It is compulsory and there is no way you can escape it.”
The student added, “What we learnt is that anyone who tests positive to HIV will have to receive his or her healing before he or she is released, while female students who are pregnant will not be allowed to graduate.”
Discipline has been a hallmark of Covenant University since inception. Apart from prohibiting the use of mobile phones by students, the school authorities outlawed the wearing of skimpy dresses and have not hesitated to expel students who were found to belong to cults.
The Chancellor of the university, Bishop David Oyedepo, has been drumming it into whoever cares to listen that the school is out to produce “total graduates;” meaning that any product of the school must not only be academically sound, but morally upright too.
Another female student, who pleaded anonymity, said a number of female students could not obtain their certificates from the school last year because they failed the pregnancy test, even though they excelled academically. She said the only set of pregnant students allowed to graduate were those who were legally married with the full knowledge of the school.
Saturday Punch learnt that some parents actually protested against the school's policy on pregnancy last year when their wards were denied their certificates. “Some parents whose wards were affected by the policy last year took it up with the school. But I don't know what the outcome was,” a source in the school said.
At present, uncertainty pervades the air as students await the results of their medical tests.
On Wednesday when Saturday Punch visited the university health centre, students were seen moving in and out of the facility where the screening was being conducted. Efforts to speak with officials of the health centre were rebuffed by a male clerk who directed our correspondent back to the Public Affairs Department of the school.
Igban, the school's spokesman, declined comment on why the school ordered the tests. “The only person who can give you an explanation on that is the Vice-Chancellor,” he said, adding, “But she is too busy preparing for the convocation programme.
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