In an exclusive chat with PrimeStarNews, the Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan (UI), PROFESSOR ABEL IDOWU OLAYINKA tells GBENRO ADESINA that the UI VC Position is not a bed of Roses, highlighting the good and the bad in the last five years.
Q: What has the journey been like in this past five years?
A: The past five years have been quite exciting and rewarding in terms of providing a golden opportunity for me to operate at the highest level of academic and administrative leadership at the University of Ibadan, my great alma mater. I did not take the opportunity to be Vice-Chancellor lightly. The system had prepared me adequately for the challenging task and onerous responsibility of being its chief helmsman, who is expected to drive the vision of the institution and set an agenda for its development. I have never lost sight of the fact that Ibadan’s desire is to be a world-class institution for academic excellence geared towards meeting societal needs.
Starting from being a lecturer at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in my Department, I had a modest experience in administration at practically every level in the institution and with all sense of modesty, I have tried to justify the confidence reposed in me with the opportunity to serve. At one time or the other, I was privileged to be Sub-Dean for four years, Head of Department for five years, Dean of the Postgraduate School for two terms and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) for two terms. I served as Chairman of the Senate Curriculum Committee. I was always willing to serve in any capacity and quite interestingly for most of these positions I was elected unopposed. I was elected overwhelmingly into the Council of the University in July 2007, as one of the representatives of Senate.
With adequate experience and extensive preparation, I had a fair idea of what the job entailed by the time I resumed as Vice-Chancellor on 1 December 2015. As one would normally expect, it has not been a bed of roses. There have been ups and downs but to the glory of God, one is fulfilled to have made use of the opportunity to serve in this capacity.
Q: What are your notable achievements?
A: There is a popular song in Yoruba which I can loosely translate into English as “If we are to start counting God’s blessings, there would be many things to say” (Ti a b ani ki a ka ire Oluwa wa, ile a su…). Whatever we may call achievement is due to the collective effort of all our staff and students, with the active support of the Governing Council and Senate. It is a thing of pride that we have an awesome team, easily the best that one could have wished for. Together, we have done quite a lot in terms of improving teaching, learning and research, innovation and value-added community service, which are the major reasons for establishing the University in the first place.
We have modified the undergraduate curriculum by ensuring that all our students now take a course on Critical Thinking. This will stand them in good stead after graduation whether as innovative entrepreneurs or as job seekers or in pursuing higher degrees. We introduced the Peer Assisted Study Session (PASS) as a student-led, student-focused approach to learning support, which empowers students to take control of their own learning under the guidance of senior students, who have previously and successfully completed the targeted historically-difficult course. We have strengthened the policy on continuous assessment.
The results of some of the measures that we have taken are there for all to see. For instance, we had the highest number of students graduating with First Class Honours during the last Convocation in November 2019. Two students of Computer Science have graduated with a perfect cumulative grade point average and we are exceedingly proud of this feat. Our Law graduates have recorded the best performance among all Universities offering Law in the Final Bar Examinations of the Nigerian Law School for the past two years, back to back. Our students and staff continue to win laurels both nationally and internationally and I always go all out to celebrate them. Our former Dean of Law, Professor Oluyemisi Bamgbose, was elevated into the inner bar in September 2018, the first female academic in the Nigerian University System to receive such recognition.
The University of Ibadan was selected as part of the USP-PQM+ project by USAID to strengthen systems that improve the quality of medical products in low- and middle-income countries. Professor Chinedum Babalola, Vice-Chancellor, Chrisland University Abeokuta and our former Dean of Pharmacy is the focal person for this Project. A few weeks ago, two of our Professors, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Kayode Adebowale and the Head of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Grace Olusola Gbotosho, were elected Fellows of the African Academy of Sciences.
Realising that ICT is at the core of teaching, learning, research, innovation and administration in any University in the 21st century, we have continued to invest more in our ICT infrastructure. The bandwidth has been increased from 200 Mbps when I took over to 780 Mbps. Each student is allocated 20 GB Data bundle per Semester; every Faculty has internet access for students. ITeMS has Turnitin Antiplagiarism tool. This is till work in progress as we have developed a Learning Management System and part of the deliverable is to have Wi-Fi service in all the Halls of Residence, the academic areas, the administrative areas and the residential quarters. We have introduced a Result Management System.
We have established four new Faculties, namely the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, and the Faculty of Multi-Disciplinary Studies. We established the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in the College of Medicine. There are 27 new academic departments over this five-year tenure. The University Library System has been strengthened. From the 2017/2018 academic session, we have set aside two reading rooms for 24 hours library service. A chat room was commissioned in January 2019 for the use of our library users. We established a Career Development and Counselling Centre very early in the life of this administration. The University is a member of the Pedagogical Leadership for Africa Project, a consortium of five universities in Africa.
The PedaL project of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR), is a platform to revolutionise the teaching narrative by updating the pedagogical skills of African university teachers. The PedaL integrated model comprises six major components, namely, pedagogical strategies, educational foundations, technology-enhanced teaching and learning, curriculum and learning design, pedagogical leadership practice and assessment. PASGR targets creating a vibrant African social science community that addresses the continent’s public policy issues.
The University of Ibadan, at the end of 2019, won a Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program grant worth over Nine Million Dollars ($9,280,951.87). The only other university in Nigeria that won the grant in 2019 is the Pan-Atlantic University. The grant will provide scholarship to 500 students in the University of Ibadan over an average period of four years at the rate of $4,640 per scholar per annum. The grant specifies that of the 500 students to be supported by the grant, 360 will be female and 140 will be refugees and /or displaced youths (90 of this 140 are expected to be youths with disability).
Also, the University of Ibadan has been selected as one of the hosting institutions for the African Centre for Career Enhancement & Skills Support (ACCESS). This is a five-year project spearheaded by Leipzig University, Germany, jointly implemented by a consortium of six African universities in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tunisia. ACCESS seeks to address the paradox of improved formal education systems in Africa and rising unemployment rates among African university graduates.
Within the project framework, new interdisciplinary concepts will be developed and piloted to contribute to promoting the employability of students and graduates of African universities. With the benefit from existing collaborations between Leipzig University and its African partner universities, ACCESS seeks to create a practice-oriented interface for African Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), development cooperation partners, business associations and agencies in the Global South. The project will be based on four pillars: Capacity Building, University Business Linkages, Employability Research and African German Entrepreneurship Academy. ACCESS is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The ACCESS Project will give a fillip to our other initiatives in entrenching entrepreneurship into our curriculum thereby improving the employability of our graduates.
We have taken a number of deliberate measures to strengthen governance in the university. A significant part of this is establishing a new position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships). A major remit of the new office as approved by Senate include the following: Facilitating and maintaining local and international linkage and exchange programmes; Evolving innovative need-driven university-wide academic and research projects; Aggressive fund generation by attracting aids, grants, endowments, etc, and through the provision of the relevant services and products to the general public; Networking with relevant governmental, non-governmental and private sector organisations; Cooperating with the Alumni Association to enhance the overall development of the university; Performing other duties and assignments as may be delegated by the Vice-Chancellor. The office is being manned by Professor Olanike Adeyemo, our first DVC (RISP).
As part of our re-engineering postgraduate education and training at the University of Ibadan, we undertook a major transformation of the Postgraduate School into a Postgraduate College headed by a Provost and two Deputy Provosts. Professor Jonathan Oyebamiji Babalola, who was the Dean of the School when its status changed was privileged to be the first Provost and Professor Ayodeji Ogunjuyigbe and Dr Kayode Samuel were privileged to be the first two Deputy Provosts.
The responsibilities associated with the day-to-day running of the affairs of affiliated institutions are diverse, extremely demanding and quite difficult to combine with the responsibilities of a Dean or Director of Institute, as was the case hitherto. It involves constant interaction with all the affiliated institutions and colleagues across relevant faculties and departments. Consequently, a Directorate of Affiliated Institutions was established in 2017.
With the continued increase in both the Academic and Non-Academic positions in our University, it became expedient to develop a Responsibility Manual that documents, in a single publication, the roles and responsibilities of each officer in the University starting from the Vice-Chancellor to the most junior officer.
We are making substantial progress with increasing the number of bed spaces available for student accommodation through Public Private Partnerships (PPP). No less than five such hostels are at various stages of completion.
We developed a Code of Ethics in Teaching and Service Delivery. This ethical guideline provides an adequate foundation for self-regulation and self-accountability and promotes ethical best practice, mindfulness, self-reflection and informed decision-making in the service of staff of the University of Ibadan. This code of ethics is based on the core values of the University of Ibadan as set out in the vision and mission statement – integrity, respect and responsibility.
As part of capacity building, we have consistently organised Workshop for new Deans and Heads of Departments for the past five years. The feedback from the participants has been most encouraging.
We have been involved with provision of infrastructures including lecture rooms and staff offices as well as roads, drainages, laboratory equipment among others. Funding has come principally from our proprietors, the Federal Government, through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Need Assessment of the Federal Ministry of Education. We are very grateful for this support. We have recently commissioned three major buildings namely the Communication Laboratory of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the Faculty of Public Health’s new administrative building and the Institute of Education’s new complex. There are about 25 other major infrastructural projects which are at different stages of completion. We are optimistic that a good number of them would be ready for commissioning before I step down 14 weeks from now.
The Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing under the able leadership of His Excellency Babatunde Raji Fashola assisted us in the asphalting of three internal roads including Amina Way, Sokoto Crescent and Gongola Road.
The National Communications Commission has built and equipped an ICT Mini-Hub for the University and we are very grateful for this.
We have received numerous supports from the private sector and friends of the University. Among these are the Aliko Dangote Building at the School of Business, Bode Amao Creche Nursery and Primary School, Odole Oodua Sir Adebutu Kessington Auditorium in the Department of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, the Mosobalaje Oyawoye e-library and Towers in the Department of Geology funded by Niger Delta Western Ltd through our Alumnus Dr Layi Fatona, The Nathaniel Idowu Foundation Vertical Extension of buildings for the Multidisciplinary Translational Research Complex, Upgrading of the Animal House in the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences and Renovation of the old PEPFAR Building to become the Clinical Drug Trials and Toxicology Unit; First Bank of Nigeria PLC through its Managing Director Dr Adesola Kazeem Adeduntan has sponsored and actively participated in our Career Fair over the last two years and the bank has equally sponsored many UI students at its Masterclass held in the Bank’s Lagos Learning Academy; Pastor Mrs Folu Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God is supporting the construction of a female Hall of Residence while Pastor E. O. Adeboye supported our fledging Department of Architecture with the donation of a bus. These are being complemented from our internally generated funds.
The Alumni Association Worldwide under the able leadership of Professor Elsie Adewoye has been very supportive in awarding scholarships to our students. A Postgraduate Hall of Residence was recently donated to the University. Many individual alumni and alumnae equally support their Departments, Faculties and Halls of Residence. Special mention must be made of Barrister Allen Onyema, Chairman of Air Peace who bought a bus for the Faculty of Law, helping with the upgrade of facilities in Ransome Kuti Hall and is undertaking a vertical extension of the Bola Ige Building at the headquarters of UIAA Alumni Worldwide.
Two new companies were incorporated with the Corporate Affairs Commission in September 2019. These are Platinum UI Commercial Enterprises Ltd and UISHOPWELL.
Electronic Voting was successfully introduced in the University of Ibadan for the Election of Congregation Representatives in Council on 19th July 2019 and for the Review of Membership of Senate/Council Boards/Committees on 29th July 2019. In spite of the initial scepticism by a large segment of the University community, the process was acclaimed to be transparent, seamless and very convenient with the election results displayed in real time at the end of voting in each case. The electronic platform has since been adopted for all elections at Student Union, Faculty and College levels, with the turn out in each case being unprecedented.
It is gratifying that the University has done very well with the accreditation of our programmes by the National Universities Commission and the various professional bodies. Our ranking by the Times Higher Education has continued to improve and we were placed in the 501-600 band in the 2020 world ranking. We can still do better than this with strategic consideration of ensuring that we attract a high concentration of talents (academic staff, internationalisation), abundant resources (from government, user changes and endowment revenue, grants) and favourable governance (strategic vision, supportive regulatory framework, autonomy, academic freedom, leadership team, culture of excellence).
Q: During your era, could you state the numbers of staff promoted?
A: I do not have the exact number of staff that have been promoted since I took over as the Vice-Chancellor. I have been here as a staff for the past 32 years, covering six different administrations and one can confirm that all the previous administrations before mine had always taken the issue of staff promotion as a top priority. One can say with every sense of responsibility that, as far as I am aware, no deserving staff of our university has ever been denied his/her promotion, whether in the past or even now under my watch. The Appointments and Promotions Committee for the various categories of staff have always being alive to their responsibilities. We have continued along that same trajectory.
The major problem we have always had is in respect of the promotion of academic staff on account of the protracted delay before the process is concluded. This arises on account of the assessment of the research publications at numerous levels from the Department to the Faculty before reaching the central Committee. And for those seeking promotion to the grade of Reader and Professor, all that the Committee can do is to decide whether a prima facie case could be made for the candidate. If the answer is yes, then we commence the process of seeking expert opinions from colleagues in Nigeria and outside the country.
I have been a member of the Appointments and Promotions Committee since 1999 and one has had a fair understanding of some of the fundamental issues with a view to improving the system.
I have correctly diagnosed and identified some of the reasons for the undue delay in processing the promotion cases. The first has to do with the unintended consequences of the time-honoured Committee system which is an inherent feature of the university system. I explain. Up till about year 2001, all that was required for a candidate being put forward for promotion was a strong recommendation by the Head of Department. But that has since been modified in that there must be a Departmental Appointments and Promotions Panel comprising at least five Professors. Where a Department has less than five professors, colleagues from cognate disciplines within the university would have to be co-opted into the Departmental Promotion Panel. Only when there is a favourable report at that level could the process be moved to the next stage at the Faculty level. Second, the number of promotion candidates has increased considerably over the years. For example, some 20 years ago, there were only about 280 Professors and Readers in this University. In comparison, as at the end of January 2020, the number of Professors and Readers had more than doubled to 610.
Consequently, we have devolved and decentralised powers to Faculties to conclude all Part I Promotion cases up to the Senior Lectureship Grade at that level. Approved cases are then forwarded to the University Appointments and Promotions Committee for Academic Staff simply for Noting, with effect from the 2017 Promotion exercise. This singular measure has greatly complemented other pro-active measures we have deliberately taken since 2015 to reduce the volume of paperwork considered by the Committee at the central University level with a salutary effect in a significant reduction in the processing of promotion matters.
In spite of the current lockdown and ASUU National Strike, we are alive to our responsibility to our colleagues by flagging off the 2019 promotion exercise for all categories of staff. Indeed, I had attempted to convene a three-day meeting of the Appointments and Promotions Committee for Academic Staff to hold from 24th to 26th August 2020 in order to consider the pending promotion of nearly 150 of our colleagues. However, I was prevailed upon by the Deans of Faculties to shelve that meeting on account of the ASUU National Strike and as a democrat, who leads from the front, I yielded to their demand.
Q: What are your challenges in office?
A: There are no serious insurmountable challenges. However, one has learnt a lot of lessons about the unpredictable nature of human beings. Since my secondary school days, my Economics teacher taught me that I should be a realist, following which, I should take life as it is and not as it ought to have been. I seek to put in my best in the hope and expectation that I would be able to leave the University much better than I met it. Once I think I have been able to accomplish that. I leave the judgment to posterity, praying that history would be kind to me. We have issues with our academic calendar on account of both internal and external factors. No matter how hard we try, we have little or no control over the external factors. Funding remains a major challenge but we continue to look inwards for succour.
Q: With the benefit of hindsight, what will you have done differently?
In all honesty, there is hardly any action that I have taken in office that I regret taking. I do not act on impulse. I try to reflect on the facts of a case before taking a decision. But once I take what I consider to be the best decision on a case based on the facts before me and the circumstances, I do not look back again. At the end of each working day, the Secretary brings to me my typically hefty file. What I normally do is to go through the entire file without taking any decision on any of the matters. As one would normally expect, some of the issues are fairly straight forward while some others may be more intricate. I take the file home and spend some time to reflect over the content. When I wake up the following morning, my first assignment is to go back to the file and start treating the contents, one after the other. By the time I get to a particular matter, I would have already developed an opinion on the best course of action. Then I treat the matter and move on.
A: What is your advice for the incoming VC?
The in-coming Vice-Chancellor has his/her job well cut out. The vision of the University is paramount and the rest of what the person has to do is simply a matter of details, preferences and choices.
Q: What are your plans after the office?
A: I am entitled to a sabbatical after the completion of my stint as the Vice-Chancellor, more so when I have not taken any leave since I returned to the University after my last sabbatical in Germany in 1999. I have a number of options on what to do to keep me busy and remain relevant professionally. First, I need to get back to teaching and research. I was employed as a lecturer a little over 32 years ago in the Department of Geology, while I have been a Professor for 21 years now. To whom much is given, much is expected. My good Lord and the system have been very kind and generous to me.
Consequently, I am expected to continue to provide leadership in teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as research supervision. I hope to continue to mentor younger colleagues, early career researchers as well as our students in the Department, the Faculty of Science, the rest of the University of Ibadan and the entire Nigerian University System. These are things one has been used to any how and according to an Igbo proverb, you cannot teach an old man how to use his left hand. Second, I have been a Fellow of some of my learned and professional societies over the past decade or so; I need to be more active in their activities. I have in mind such institutions as the Nigerian Academy of Science, the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society, the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) and the Geological Society of London.
The reality is that these associations have contributed significantly to my experience and it is only fit and proper that I give something back to them. As we speak, I am a member of the Distinguished Awards Committee of NAPE, with membership comprising seasoned and highly respected professionals in my discipline and as recent as some days ago, I had the privilege to attend another virtual meeting of this Committee and I felt very happy being part of it all. The experience of the other members of the august body is invaluable. Third, I hope to spend some quality time to write a book on university management as soon as possible. These activities and engagements should keep me very busy going forward.
Q: As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, conferences that were not cancelled were held as virtual conferences. Would they be acceptable for promotion of staff like the physical conferences?
A: There is no reason that virtual conferences should not be acceptable to the Promotions Committee during this period of COVID-19 Pandemic. We can only hope that things will improve very soon so that all of us can live our lives normally including the opportunities offered to network and collaborate with colleagues from other jurisdictions by attending international conferences outside the shores of our great country Nigeria.
Q: Some academic staff are complaining that they have not being getting promotion arrears, could you shed light on this as well as explain the situation and position of the university on promotion arrears?
A: The issue of delay in the payment of promotion arrears is very worrisome. It is double jeopardy for the affected members of staff. On one hand, you have delayed the completion of their promotion in comparison to their colleagues put forward for promotion at the same time. Then when the process is concluded, you delay in paying them the accrued arrears. This mainly affects academic staff, especially those in the professorial cadre. If we can devise a mechanism whereby the promotion exercise could be concluded on time then the arrears would not arise in the first instance. From December 2015 when I resumed as the Vice-Chancellor, the relevant Committees have been meeting regularly. This was up until December 2019. Unfortunately, the Committee has not being able to meet this year on account of strike by staff unions. Nonetheless, we will continue to make representation to the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja for payment of the promotion arrears.
Q: Students admitted for the 2019/20 academic session of the university have not resumed, will there be admission exercise for the 2020/21 session for new students?
A: Our academic calendar was running far behind schedule before the COVID-19 lockdown and closure of the university since March this year. Many candidates have already applied to the University of Ibadan for the 2020/2021 academic session and to that extent we have a responsibility to process their admission. We plan to organise their Post UTME screening next month. The schedule for this will be announced shortly.
Q: Is there an expectation that an academic session will be cancelled as a result of disruption in the academic calendar?
A: Maybe it is too early to talk of cancellation of an academic session at this point. The Senate of the University will appraise the situation when normalcy returns and decide as appropriate.
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