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From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Professor Uchefula Ugonna Chukwumaeze is the current Vice Chancellor of the Imo State University (IMSU).
In this interview with The Education Report, he talked about so several issues facing Nigeria education system, his achievements and his views about strike in the Nigerian University System (NUS).
Excerpts.
What state did you meet IMSU on assumption of office?
The moral was very low, was a bit discouraged and disenchanted, disoriented and disorganized. My pacesetter was not home grown, when I was appointed, there were already a lot of situations, there was the universities strike. I inherited the strike, the rest is history and we thank God we have been able to survive.
What have you done differently from others?
A lot of things, we established a synergy between the management and the Governing Council, the community and as well the visitor, because of that before ASUU called off the strike, we had commenced academic activities peacefully and since then we have achieved a lot. We have established a Faculty of Media Studies; formerly we used to have one Department of Mass Communication. When I came on board as the vice chancellor, the greatest problem I had was localisation of the university. We are just champions here if we don’t make ourselves known, we cleared all our debts among the Committee of Vice Chancellors. We attend seminars and conferences and we have registered this university in the Commonwealth of Nigeria universities. We have registered this university with the African Union of Universities. You can see that we’re now known in the cloud, we have established Institute of Atmospheric Research. It’s only in two universities you will find this, UNN and Uyo. We had the first public lecture in June, we have been linked by the Nigeria Metrological Institute, and we carry out research, atmospheric research both in agriculture and climates. My administration have cleared arrears of promotions, before I came the last promotion in this school was in 2016 /2017. My administration immediately embarks on appraisal exercise to clear all the arrears of promotions. The staff are now happy, they’re receiving promotion letters, we just finished the last appraisal in 2021/2022.
My administration sanitized the system, we inherited a system were corruption and sorting was the order of the day because we now have somebody on board who cannot tolerate corruption. To get the students to come up to complain was very difficult, they were afraid they would be dealt with. To solve that problem we have to restore their confidence, I introduced an open door policy, whoever you are whether you’re a gateman or student, I don’t shut my door to anybody. If you walk up to see the VC you will see me, except I’m in a meeting, it was still difficult to bet them that way, I now have to open an email and distributed it to the students. I get virtually 10 complaints everyday and we follow it up. For what has not happened in the school for 20 years, we have suspended lecturers’ even professors for unprofessional behaviours, we stopped selling of textbooks directly to students. We take your books to the bookshop, they will access it and put the price tag as it should be and you don’t force a student to buy a book. The era is gone, tearing the question papers at the back of the book is gone, and we suspended 7 lecturers.
Now we have restored confidence in the students, when a lecturer slapped a student in the class, we suspended the lecturer. This things have been happening before, we suspended the lecturer, we set up a committee and now he’s facing the panel even lecturers involved in admission racketeering, we have moved beyond that stage. So we’re addressing corruption in all its facets, the era of writing examinations and it takes two years to see the result is gone. No lecturer will hold a script beyond four weeks after the examination, maximum of eight weeks. Before lecturers are not sponsored for workshop and seminars, all my years in this school, if I’m going for a workshop or seminars, it’s my money hundred percent.
But I said under me it will not happen, from last year till now, over 100 lecturers have been sponsored to workshops and conferences, both academic and non academic staff. As I’m talking to you now, four lecturers are on their way to Tanzania, we sponsored part of their trip, we make sure some percentage of the governor’s fund to the school goes for internal training of the staff. Non of our staff is invisible to the world, we compel them to enter Google scholars. We have restored confidence in the medical schools, some of them have been stagnated and we have been graduating them. On students’ union election, it’s a thing of the past; students are never on rampage again. There have not been students’ election in this school for the past five years, past VCs have been using caretaker committees, one thing was clear about our students’ union election, the voting was online, we perfected our ICT system.
The students were asked not to come to school on the election day, they voted their choice through their phones and in their houses, we all just have to gather at the school auditorium to collate and announce the result. There was a big TV screen, as they vote, it will be counting, no interference by the management. Another achievement we have recorded is that all these years we have no university press, now we have established it. We have a Micro Finance Bank that is making profit and our medical centre can match any hospital. This university has not done its convocation for the past eight years, the last time they did was in 2015 but we had our convocation this year we meet all demands of ASUU.
Have you been receiving threats since you assumed office?
Yes. It is part of the hazards, but each time they call me I tell them come, this where I’m because I’m not afraid of anyone but God that place me on the sit.
How healthy do you think is the Nigerian University System?
The Nigeria University System to my opinion is very healthy; we have our colleagues that travel outside the country for PhD. If you go to the National Universities Commission (NUC) assessment worldwide, you will know that we’re doing well. Some universities in America cannot march this university, that’s why most of lecturers here if they travel abroad, they don’t allow them to come back again.
Is it not a shame that universities are paying huge sum of money on electricity, why can’t they generate their own?
It’s a bogus project, i will give you an example, our economy is a big factor, and how much is the dollar to naira. Last time I contacted a German firm for a solar project, we surveyed everything and we now entered into the cost.
We asked them to come and install it and after 50 years it will be ours and every month we would be paying a minimum of 10 million depending on the situation of dollars. If we’re making such money we could have just build our own sub station. Were do we get the money. I agree with you but the funding.
Is Nigeria universities curriculum intoned with the realities in the labour market?
I say yes because virtually every course has a practical aspect and professional curses have the practical aspects. The professionals come for their own accreditation. Example Law, Medicine, Architecture as NUC is coming for accreditation, the professional bodies are coming for their own and when they come, they want to satisfy themselves that the curriculum is covering the practical aspect. The curriculum in Nigeria universities will cover anything the labour market will require, let the lecturer teaching these courses not be corrupt because corruption destroys the system that’s why I’m tackling corruption.
With the approval of two unions in the NUS, are we seeing the end of strikes in public universities?
End of strike is not a problem of multiple unions. If you want to end strife and strike in the polity then there will not only be proper funding but transparency and good government. Without transparency and good governance, strife and strike will never end.
