TWO YEARS IN OFFICE VC UNIJOS»Professor Hayward Babale Mafuyai, Vice Chancellor, University of Jos (UNIJOS), clocks two years in office today. He spoke with Sunday Vanguard on his efforts to re-position the institution and argued that the notion of falling educational standard in Nigeria is rather exaggerated. According to him, what is needed is to improve on the quality of instruction and provision of good physical infrastructure in schools to match the level of training in the developed societies. Mafuyai also spoke on the outcome of some research programmes in UNIJOS. It has been two years since you became Vice Chancellor of the University of Jos. How has the journey been? The journey so far has been quite challenging; one had many issues to contend with. The perennial issue of inadequate funding, against the backdrop of the race to move remaining Faculty buildings to the permanent site is an ever present one. But locally the main issue has been that of security. At the beginning, we had quite serious challenges, especially in the second half of 2011 and that came to a climax during the post-UME examination. But after that, in 2012/2013, it’s been very quiet for us, except for when we had to contend with the students who resisted the payment of revised development levy. Overall, the relations have been quite good with the students and staff. In terms of capital projects, we thank God that a number of projects in the Faculty of Education (Block 13, 14 and 15) were completed and are in use. Other capital projects are at various stages of completion, while new projects were recently awarded and are still within the contract duration period. We are hopeful that before the end of the year, we will have quite a lot of projects that would have been completed and commissioned. What are those projects that have been completed and waiting to be commissioned? The projects completed and awaiting commissioning include the professorial building that was initiated by our Chancellor, HRH, the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Aladesanmi III, a Faculty building for the medical school consisting of staff offices, lecture hall and laboratories. Two, beautification and land scaping projects at the Naraguta campus have been completed. Like I said earlier, there are others that are at various levels of completion and will be completed in the next two or three months, for instance, the Faculty of Arts, Theatre and Film Block A and C. Apart from the problem of funding, what would you say has been the major headache of your administration? A major headache has been the security challenge in parts of the state which has now abated. Also, phase two land of the university which we are working seriously to be able to repossess for future growth and development of new programmes that are long overdue to be introduced by the university. These are the Faculties of Agriculture, Veterinary and Engineering, which are in very high demand. For some reasons we were unable to start them at the beginning of the university but, now, we hope to do so. Can we talk more about the programmes you intend to introduce? The new programmes in agriculture, veterinary and engineering sciences have been in the pipeline and we are proceeding about them in a methodical way to ensure that we meet all the regulatory requirements. We are also taking steps to ensure that everything is in place because we don’t want to make the mistakes that others made. We have also consulted with the regulatory bodies and we are continuing to go along with them; interviews have been held for the recruitment of staff and once we are in the position to invite the NUC to come for the final resource verification, then we would do that, and hope that we are able to pass the stringent requirements of the NUC. What would you say are the major achievements of your administration? We have been able to maintain harmony with both staff and students. We sent 74 academic staff for Ph.D. studies, 65 on master’s degree programmes while also sponsoring 139 for national and international conferences; and further 141 staff were also sponsored by TETFund for national and international conferences. We recorded modest achievements in research where our researchers reported findings on Artemisia annua , the plant with the active biomolecules required in the combination drug therapy formulation for malaria treatment . The plant has been successfully cultivated at the Centre for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering at Mabudi, Langtang South in Plateau State. The university has demonstrated it can be cultivated in commercial quantities and we have data on the soil and other requirements. Active ingredient from the plant is being extracted in collaboration with scientists at the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) Abuja and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. When sufficient data is generated, we hope very soon to call the scientific community to report our findings. We have also made some breakthrough in the areas of anti-snake venom research and medical microbiology. One of our students, together with some staff, identified a new fungus strain Candidaafricana for the first time isolated from Nigeria, and in sequence, detected the mutation in the gene responsible forfluconazole resistance in Candiasis. The research will be further carried out and expanded to cover related medical and health issues. I think that is quite a big achievement. Researchers in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences developed Grema Gum for the formulation of tablets and also demonstrated the value of mushroom in the management of sleeping sickness disease (Trypanosomiasis). The university, in collaboration with the University of Southern California, US, successfully researched into Pentecostal practices in Nigeria. In the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the university emerged as the only one in Nigeria for Instructor Training Centre ( ITC) and CISCO Academic Support for West and Central Africa, English speaking countries. University of Jos is Peason Vue Testing Centre which allows us administer certificate licensure examination for all professionals. Another area of achievement was the organisation of the first ever peace sports competition among tertiary institutions in Plateau State as part of our contribution to the peace building process in the state. The competition attracted many tertiary institutions in the state and was supported by Plateau State government, Federal Ministry of Sports and Special Task Force (STF) in Plateau State. This was closely followed by the successful hosting of the NUGA zonal preliminaries which was well attended by universities in Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Plateau and Yobe States. Best pharmacy programme We made steady progress in achieving excellence in our academic programmes. Currently our pharmacy programme is rated the best nationally and Law Faculty is the third best in the country. We continue to work steadfastly toward achieving excellence in all of our other programmes. One of the things you introduced when you came in was the ethical reorientation of the staff and you even organized some form of training on the right work attitude for them. How has this paid off? The feedback we are getting on that exercise is that there is a growing understanding that the business of the university has to be more efficient, effective and people are responding to this. I have positive feedback and we have tried to also reinforce it; we did a follow-up and it is a continuous exercise until we get a critical mass within the university workforce that is able to effect the desired transformation that we are seeking. As a university, we have desired as professionals to be excellent in all the things we do and that include our work ethics. How has the university coped with the problem of cultism and examination malpractices? Since I came to office, the issue of cultism has been quite low and I say that because there are one or two reported cases which originated off campus and spilled over to the campus. We have continued to work with security agencies to ensure that cultists have no base to operate from our campuses, and you would also know that often these problems get intertwined with the issues of robbery. But we are working round the clock to ensure there is no safe haven for cultists to operate in our campuses. Talking about examination misconduct, the statistics available to me show that it has gone down dramatically and that was achieved by increased surveillance during invigilation; we have also introduced electronic gadgets. We have done a lot more of talking to students before the exams. Let me say because of these measures the cases have dropped, but I regret to say that it has not gone down to zero because in every exam we have a few cases that have to be dealt with. There is the belief that admission has been stiffer since you assumed office… We have guidelines from JAMB (Joint Admission and Matriculation Board) and we insist that these guidelines are strictly followed. We have gone back to the practice of admission committees working right from departments to Faculty levels and right up to the central admission committee. That is the ideal process and we simply insist and go for merit. When we finish with merit and the guidelines, we look at the whole country, because we are a federal university and we even want an international university. In these days, talking about internationalization or globalization, University of Jos would like to have the full component of foreign students and staff on its campuses and therefore we look at that also and then talk about catchment states and educationally least developed states. We don’t have any other criteria except if and when recently staff made request to include the fact that they feel their children should also be admitted. Usually that is the entirely insignificant portion of the whole admission exercise and they can only be considered when they have met the whole admission requirement. How successful have the fund generating activities introduced by the university been? As the Vice-Chancellor, I see myself as the chief fund raiser in the university. The practice is world over, particularly for some of the best well-known universities in Europe, America, where the alumni are given a platform to return to their alma mater and make contributions. When I came in, it was a cardinal point of my programmes that we would mobilize the alumni to give them the platform and we have been working very hard on that. We started state alumni branches in Abia, Bauchi, Cross Rivers, we have reinforced the ones in Plateau and taken it down to some local governments. The Abuja chapter has been strengthened and, we were supposed to be in Benin, Edo State this month, but, at the instance of the local chapter, they have requested we should come later in the year to inaugurate them. So the train is moving and we are giving our alumni the opportunity to give back to the university. Specifically, we suggested five key areas for alumni to give towards -endowment, infrastructural development, scholarship for brilliant students and the indigents who didn’t get some kind of funding, and, because the university itself decided to transform itself into a world class research institute, we have also suggested that our alumni can give towards research and, in other situations, we let the donors give to undesignated funds if they choose to. These are the areas we suggested but they are not limited to that; anybody can come in as a friend of the university and carry out a project. What is your projection for the university in the next three years? In the next few years, we are focused in strategizing to be able to move more Faculties to the permanent site. We are also focusing on strategizing to repossess our phase two land, upon which we hope to continue to grow and expand. We also hope that we will be able to bring up more facilities through generated and solicited funds, so we can build a central research laboratory, and conduct excellent research. We also want to strengthen all of our existing programmes so that we can achieve excellence in all of them. I hope that in the next few years more staff will acquire Ph.D. degrees in line with the national drive to have Ph.D. degree as a minimum for university academics. If we can get all our staff to have Ph.D within this period, that would be my great joy and accomplishment. There are concerns that the standard of education in Nigeria is dropping to the extent that universities are producing unemployable graduates. What do you make of this? I don’t quiet agree that standard of education is really that bad the way it is painted in certain quarters. All we can say is that a lot needs to be done to meet up with the developed nations. The difference is in the inadequate and or dilapidated infrastructure which is critical to a conducive learning environment. Once these issues are addressed, you will find that students and the academic staff will be at their best; because if you look at the situation we are facing now, even with the total collapse and dilapidation of infrastructure in teaching and research, we are still able to make some notable contribution to learning. Also, you will see that when our so-called unemployable graduates leave the land and go to other institutions outside Nigeria for further studies, they excel; some even make distinctions. So we should not be the ones saying that our students are not employable. Maybe there are some who turn out not to be good products, but we shouldn’t use that to condemn all. So I don’t subscribe to the fact that our education is totally bad. What is very bad in it is that we need massive transformation and I will urge the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, develop infrastructure, particularly in science and technology and in the arts and humanities. Once this is done, in a matter of 10 to 15 years, you will see the reward of that investment. If you look at Malaysia and China and see where they are, you will know that it is a direct dividend of their investments in education. If today Britain and America still see education as number one, what makes us think that they don’t know what they are doing or that we know more than them? Education remains the principal thing; it touches on all sectors of the economy. Therefore no investment in all fields of education can be too much. Who is Professor Mafuyai? I will describe myself as a detribalized Nigerian, a Christian, a lover of peace and justice, an academician, a zoologist, a public health scientist who, by the grace of God, trained both in Nigeria and overseas and I expect to offer acceptable services to the nation.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 02:46:33 +0000