Muhammed Mustapha Akanbi, professor of Business Law and the Vice-Chancellor, Kwara State University, Mallete, has expressed the readiness of the institution to resume academic activities if government direct schools in the country to reopen.
Akanbi, gave this indication while speaking with journalists at NewsKeg programme of the correspondents’ chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalist in Ilorin the state capital, says: “We are already fumigating our facilities, both in Malete and Ilorin. We have been doing online lectures for classes with a large number of students.
“For those with seizable numbers, we have made plans to maintain physical distancing of two feet as recommended and also divide some into other lecture classes. We also planned to fumigate our library and make sure students wear face masks”
Akanbi, opined that economy is a better boost when people operate or transact through physical contact, saying “we can never compare physical learning with online.”
He commented the Government to have taken a bold and good step by allowing some particular sets of students to resume, imploring the general public to learn to live with the COVID-19 pandemic by complying with safety protocols.
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The Vice-Chancellor noted that the pandemic has posed a challenge to all facets of life globally, including private universities.
“We are currently at home because of the COVID-19 and government directive. If you ask me now; I will tell you that the universities should be reopened immediately.
“One of my vision is to improve on our IGR. Our major challenge now is the Covid-19 pandemic which has prevented us to move at the pace we want. We rely more on our IGR, loan and school fees to fund the university. The pandemic has really affected all sectors, including government, KWASU is not excluded.”
To ensure financial sustainability in KWASU, Akanbi informed that the school management came up with IGR centres such as KWASU Investment, KWASU Business School, KWASU Entrepreneur Centre among other measures to improve the school capacity as government alone can not do it.
“KWASU will be self-sustaining in the next five years without seeking loans from banks,” he said.
“One of the reforms I embarked upon is to introduce the much popular faculties systems instead of the college been operated before.
“Also, my desire is for KWASU is to have College of Medicine. My predecessor has begun the process which I will be working on to see it completed. When we have college of medicine we will be able to go into more research and challenges like COVID-19 will be sommounted.
“A way forward for our professors is to ensure they go into quality oriented research.
“Research must be proving solutions to problems and not just for doing sake. It must spell out the benefits that would be derived.”
Speaking further, the VC disclosed that “we also want to introduce tenure on administrative staff. All head of departments, directors and other now have tenure. It’s not proper for someone to remain in a particular position for years.
