The governing council of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, recently announced a new fees regime for the institutions, which sparked protests and temporarily led to the suspension of academic activities. In this interview with LAOLU HAROLDS, the vice chancellor, Professor Igbekele Amos Ajibefun, a Professor of Agricultural Economics, spoke on the development and other issues. Excerpts
THE recent announcement of a hike in tuition fees sparked off protests. How was the crisis eventually managed?
The protests didn’t take us unaware. Anywhere there is increase in fees, even if it is a marginal, students will protest. So, the students went to protest in Akure, the seat of government of Ondo State, and the government listened to them. In fact, the government invited the leadership of the students’ union, as well as the management of the university, and the chairman of the governing council, for deliberations on the issue. It was discussed and ways of reducing the fees were tabled and deliberated. With the intervention of the governor, the fees payable by the students were drastically reduced. After the reduction, the students’ leadership took it back to their congress where it was decided to accept the reduction, having seen the commitment of government to reduce the fees by almost 50 per cent.
The management pledged to provide some support to the students in coping with the payment of the new fees. Is this true?
With the increase in school fees, the governing council approved some financial support to assist the students to cope with payment of the new fees. These include introduction of loan scheme; scholarship scheme as well as expansion of the existing Work-Study Scheme, in addition to other forms of support.
Just last week, a new office, Students’ Support Centre was created under the Vice Chancellor’s Office, with a coordinator appointed to coordinate the activities of the office. A committee has also been set up to work out the modalities and criteria for the implementation of all forms of financial support to the students. One of the categories of students to get support from the university are the physically challenged students. The application forms for financial support for this category of students are already out. The university will support the physically challenged students with as much as 50 per cent of their school fees. Another area of financial support for students is the provision of scholarships for brilliant students, as it is done all over the world. This will promote academic excellence, as students will compete for the scholarships. The committee set up to attend to all that has to do with students’ loans, scholarships and other forms of financial support is already working on detailed criteria for selecting beneficiaries for the available support schemes.
What have you done to boost the rating of AAUA locally and internationally since you came on board as VC?
I have built on the solid foundation I met on ground. The university has continued to make steady progress in all areas. In terms of infrastructural development, the university has progressed. When one moves round the campus, you will come across over 10 huge projects that have been completed since my arrival in January 2015, and we have over eight other projects that are ongoing and at different completion stages. Two of the projects nearing completion are the Faculties of Arts and Education buildings. These are gigantic projects that are well over 90 per cent completion. The university is working on generation of its electricity supply through Solar Power. The university is trying to establish four megawatt solar power project on campus. Once this is achieved, the challenges associated with epileptic electricity supply in the university will be over.
The University recently established its radio station, Radio AAUA 90.3 FM, which was inaugurated in December 2017. The university continues to make progress in terms of academic development. We have initiated new active collaborations with several universities within Nigeria and across the globe. Some of them include Auburn University and Alabama State University in the United States. These institutions send professors to our university on regular basis on capacity building for staff and students. Some members of our academic staff have been to Auburn University for courses and trainings on the basis of the collaboration between the institutions.
The university has also made progress in terms of academic programme accreditation. There was a major NUC accreditation exercise in the university in November 2015, when 26 programmes were visited for accreditation. At the end of the exercise, the university had excellent performance with 25 out of the total 26 programmes having full accreditation and only one with interim accreditation. In the year 2017, we had another major accreditation visit with the same success story.
The academic programmes of the university continue to witness expansion. The programmes in the new Faculty of Agriculture had NUC resource verification exercise in 2016. All the programmes in the exercise were successful. We recently commenced the Department of Performing Arts. There was a resource verification exercise for the programme by NUC about a year ago. The programme was successful in that exercise. Academic development in the university is not limited to expansion of academic programmes but also includes quality improvement. You are aware of consistent excellent performance of graduates of our Law programme at the Nigerian Law School. Since 2014 till date, our students have performed brilliantly at the Law School, coming out with First Class and taking most of the prizes.
What should be expected from the university in the years ahead?
I have the belief that once we have a peaceful campus, better things will continue to roll in. For instance, the university is moving in the direction of expanding the academic horizon more. We are coming up with new academic programmes within the next few months. I think they are part of developments that will promote the university. In terms of welfare, we shall continue to address welfare of staff and students.
How progressive is AAUA in terms of research activities?
Research is one of the cardinal areas for which universities are established. Therefore, we shall continue to promote policy-relevant and problem-solving researches in the university. We have some scholars here in this university that are conducting researches that are winning laurels globally. They have won research grants from different prestigious organizations such as the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) of Germany, International Foundation for Science (IFS), Sweden, among others. The Centre for Biocomputing and Drugs Development in AAUA is at the verge of developing anti-diabetic drug and other important drugs. The Centre, which has received great support from Nagasaki University, Japan, has collaboration with NAFDAC and other important National and International Agencies and Organizations.
Is it healthy that public universities rely heavily on government sponsorship?
I don’t think any public institution in Nigeria can cope without subvention from government. Nigeria’s public universities will continue to depend on government for subvention in order to survive. The nature of public universities in Nigeria is such that subventions are provided by their proprietors for both recurrent and capital expenditures. However, while it is important that governments continue to provide adequate funding for the universities, it is now incumbent on managers of these universities to come up with innovative ways to generate funds to the universities so as to complement government subventions in smooth running of the institutions.
At AAUA, we are looking in different directions to complement government subvention. One of the directions is to raise the level of school fees from average of N23,000 per year for all categories of students to N70,000 per year for our final year students, while other returning students now pay between and N80,000 and N100,000 per year. The fresh students pay between N100,000 and N150,000 per year. In addition to increase in school fees, the university is also taking steps to generate funds through endowment. This is already yielding positive results.
How have you coped with payment of salaries and other emoluments?
Regular payment of salaries has been a major challenge for us. While it is possible to manage with some other challenges, payment of staff salaries is critical to smooth running of the university. Recognizing this fact, we have been doing our best to ensure staff members are paid. We have had to cut down on several expenses just to ensure we pay salaries and make our workers happy.
The NUC has deadline on lecturers holding PhDs. How well is AAUA complying?
The university encourages its young lecturers to acquire their Ph.D degrees early in their career. With full funding from TETFund for staff training, no academic staff has reason not to acquire a Ph.D degree within a short period. At AAUA, we will continue to encourage our academic staff to acquire their higher degrees.