New Telegraph

OOU VC seeks more funds for varsity’s development

Barely a few months to the expiration of his five-year single term, as the 10th substantive Vice-Chancellor of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye in Ogun State, Prof. Ganiyu Olatunji Olatunde, has highlighted some major achievements of his administration, attributing them to stable academic calendar and workers’ cooperation.

 

This was as he said that the stateowned university, despite all odds, has continued in the last 10 years to witness sustainable growth and development, as well as enjoyed the needed stability to achieve its tripodal mandate of teaching, research and community service.

 

He, however, attributed this to the resolve and determination of members of staff, students and other members of the university community to ensure peace and sustained development that have positioned the ivory tower as an institution of first choice of admission seekers.

 

Giving his stewardship in the last four and half years, Olatunde said in the area of academic development, the university runs 75 undergraduate programmes in 53 departments; 181 postgraduate programmes made up of 41 PGD programmes, 14 Professional Masters programmes, 72 Academic Masters programmes and 54 PhD programmes.

 

The Vice-Chancellor, who added that new three academic programmes – Music, Linguistics and Nursing – approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC) had been added to the existing programmes, hinted that plans to commence the Open Distance Learning  programme has reached an advanced stage.

 

He, however, stressed that this would increase access to candidates for university education, as well as raise the students’ population into the university, saying these major interventions in the core academic activities have made the institution one of the universities to be reckoned with not only in the country, but also globally.

 

Basking in the euphoria of the substantial growth and development of the university, under his administration, Olatunde noted that the management had adopted policy of driving the university electronically to increase efficiency and reduce waste, as part of efforts at ensuring that the institution becomes a 21st Century centre of academic excellence that is globally relevant and competitive.

 

According to him, this drive led to increase in the human resource capacity of the ICT Directorate by 128.57 per cent through the deployment of additional IT personnel, as well as series of interventions that include upgrade of the university network from 10MBPs to STM2 (155MBPs) across all the campuses. He pointed out these and other ICT interventions were carried out in order to increase and improve the university’s web capacity.

 

On staff welfare, the Vice- Chancellor said: “As part of efforts to improve the administrative skills of staff and maximise their productivity, staff training and retraining were undertaken for over 260 staff sponsored to various workshops and conferences in Nigeria and overseas.

 

“Sincemyassumptionof office, theuniversityhasensuredprompt and regular payment of salaries as at when due, but not later than 26th of every month, to boost staff morale and enhance their welfare.”

 

Olatunde, who also added that the infrastructural development of the university had expanded in the last four and half years, listed some of the projects executed under his administration to include completion of the abandoned modern ICT Building and Senate Building.

 

Following the critical needs of the university in terms of infrastructure, he said 38 building projects were initiated out of which 23 had been completed, while 15 are ongoing. Despite the laudable achievements, the Vice-Chancellor expressed regrets that inadequate funding has constituted the major challenge confronting the system.

 

He said: “While we continued to pursue an aggressive policy that will ensure that the IGR sources of the university are enhanced through re-engineering of our revenue generating units, and the reinvention and revitalization of other commercial ventures, and curbing wastages and revenue leakages, we look up to the state government to assist us in increasing the subvention to the university.”

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