The vice chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) recently spoke with some journalists about the achievements of his administration in the last two and a half years, among other issues, expressing gratitude to the Ondo State government for supporting his vision of building a 21st century university. Femi Ibirogba presents the excerpts.IN the first half of your administration as the vice chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin university, what will you describe as your major achievements'Two and a half years on, one can identify, in terms of what you call achievements, the efforts we have made towards the deepening of the academic integrity of the university, the expansion of infrastructure on campus, staff and student welfare and internationalisation of our programmes. So we can look at our achievements through these sub-headings.In terms of academic programmes, when I came, I had a strong conviction that we needed to improve on the quality of our academic programmes, and there were several dimensions to these. The first thing we did was to institute a merit-based admission system, which simply means you don't get admission into the university through any other means other than the quality of your performances in the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and post-UTME tests. This has served us well, improved not just the quality of intakes, but has also increased the self-confidence of our students.Secondly, we set out to review academic programmes. Several of the programmes were brought up for review not just to update them and keep them more relevant to the society, but also to give everyone of them an additional entrepreneurial dimensions which we consider very critical to higher education at this level of our national development.We did all of that, and by the grace of God, we have full accreditation of all our academic programmes by the National Universities Commission (NUC). A couple of weeks ago, the NUC team that came visited our Mass Communication Department and said our programmes and equipment, were virtually the best in the country and that we should maintain it.We also have tried to improve on the quality of teaching and research. We have extensively supported academics to participate in conferences. All you need here since we came on board is to give evidence that a research paper you prepare has been accepted for presentation in an international conference. When we have that, we support you to attend the conference. At least once in a year, every academic has funds to attend an international conference and at least a local conference.We have also paid attention to the general environment for scholarship, which, again, for us is very important. We have tried to improve on the quality of classrooms and laboratories so that students find a more conducive environment for learning. In terms of social relevance, we have continued to make our programmes relevant to the needs of not just our immediate community, but also the larger society of Ondo State, Nigeria and humanity at large.In the last two and half years, we have been able to float about four different institution centres that have direct impacts on the larger community.In the last two and a half years, we have consummated academic exchange programmes with at least five or six universities spread across the world. We have one with a university in Malaysia, and another with URC in Carlifonia and, I just got a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) from a university in the United States, which was taken to the Senate, and upon approval, we will send it back to the university in the United States, which has actually endorsed the MoU and under this scheme, we exchange academics and students. Later this month or early July, we are sending two persons to Malaysia to study rice paddy production. All of these have been consummated. We have continually paid attention to staff welfare. We have strengthened our relationship with staff through their unions. For instance, this institution was the first state university to implement the salary component of the Federal Government/Staff Union agreement, the new salary package recently approved for medical workers has been implemented; the minimum wage policy has been implemented. We pay attention to issue relating to staff welfare.We pay adequate attention to issue relating to our students, because we know that that is the primary constituency we have on campus. We have told the students repeatedly that it serves nobody any good to have the university shut abruptly; to have academic activities suspended and have your calendar truncated. We have made it clear to the students as the potential wielders of the certificates and degrees of the university, they have every responsibility to ensure that the university runs without any break in its calendar. We have instituted what we call Student/Vice Chancellor Forum, which is a platform for bringing all manners of student leaders and we meet from time to time. It is an opportunity to ventilate, to know their frustration and identify their needs, and this has helped us to diffuse tension in the system.Another critical area which we have touched is infrastructure development of the university. I must confess that one of the key challenges we faced when we got here had to do with inadequacy of space, but we have tried to remedy that in such a fundamental way by adding a few more structures to what we had on campus. As I speak to you now, to the glory of God, we have no less than 30 different construction projects going on on campus. The outstanding ones include the Senate Building, which is a five storey building; a thirty-classroom quadrangle, having 26 classrooms and four lecture theatres; health centres; internal resource centre; two 500-capacity lecture theatres; we are building a twin 300-capacity theatre which are nearing completion, and a 10-kilometre asphalt overlaid road and drainage network is also ongoing. So, in summary, these are some of the things we have been able to achieve and I am using this opportunity to compliment the proprietor of the university, the Ondo State government, and the Governing Council of the university, for their support.You said you are in collaboration with local and international universities on academic programmes and other aspects, have you started seeing results of the collaboration or are the expected benefits long-term'Some of the expected benefits are short-term and some are long-term. As a matter of fact, let me say that it depends on how far we are willing to go.Last month, a team was with me from a state of Israel trying to develop a tripartite programme between my university and another one in Europe. The benefits are limitless. We just pick the different aspects of the packages that we consider we are ready to implement. What I am looking at ultimately would be an arrangement that would make my students to be able to go to these institutions to share ideas, facilities and come back and foreign students from those universities can also come here.The part-time programmes have been suspended. What informed your decision on this'The truth is that I have neither been an enthusiast nor an antagonist of these so-called part-time programmes.When I came in, I was not so enthused approving the admission they carried out in several of the programmes and I did everything possible to bring down the number of not just student intakes but also the programmes under the part-time programmes. But about a year ago, we made up our minds that we had to put a stop to this and we stopped admission into all of the programmes. Incidentally, the National Universities Commission (NUC) issued a circular to all universities a couple of months ago, asking us to do what exactly we had done a year earlier, to put a stop to all admissions to all part-time programmes. My concern on these programmes had to do with our capacity. I never considered the university capable of managing both the regular and the part-time programmes at the same time.You have persistently said that you want to build a 21st century-compliant university. By your standards, what are your yardsticks of your dreamed varsity and how far have you gone'We just packaged our vision for the university to make a 21st century university properly called. The point I am making is, first, a 21st century university will be fully involved in teaching and research; it will be fully committed to student support services; it will be a university that has evidence of positive impacts on the larger society; it will be a university where you have top-grade scholars recognised worldwide; a university where a student would come in so-so date and has a clear idea of when he is graduating. All of these constitute a package, and this type of package is what we desire to deliver in Adekunle Ajasin University. This is the vision that we have, but we are not yet there. We want to move progressively and get our university to be able to compete and be in the same league with the best universities anywhere in the world.Can you describe the Nigerian universities as 21st century compliant'The situation with Nigeria is not exactly one that is worthy of celebration. I say this without any fear of contradiction and that doesn't take away my patriotism. As somebody has said, Nigeria is a country that is lying prostrate. We only hope that someday, we will be able to find the courage to do what is needful to get out of this calamitous situation that we have found ourselves.How would you describe the commitment of the state government to the finance of the university, considering that it concurrently finances the Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa (OSUSCO)'I cannot speak for my colleagues in this other institution, but I can say without any fear that this university has fared very well since the present government has been in office. The evidence is there. As I told you earlier, we have no less than 30 projects ongoing on the campus. And more, what we have received in terms of funding for capital development in three and a half years of this government is much more than all that the university received in its first 10 years combined. That, for me , is a demonstration of commitment to education.What do you think of the emergence of more private universities'I think it is unhealthy. I have made this point on different occasions, especially some of the ones put together by the NUC. I do not think it is proper to hand over a certificate to whoever has the funds to put up some infrastructure. I believe the concept called university is so sacrosanct that there has to be a degree of cognate experience before setting up a university.While I believe we need more universities, I don't think it is right to hand over certificates to whoever has the money to build some structures and call it a university.
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