Professor Florence Obi, the first female vice-chancellor of the University of Calabar (UNICAL)spoke on the achievements of the institution over the last 50 years.
In an interview with Sun Newspaper’s ANIEKAN ANIEKAN, she said, after 50 years, the institution can compete favourably with its counterparts across the world.
Excerpts:
University of Calabar is 50 years old; how has the journey been over the last decade?
The University of Calabar is a second generation university that started as a campus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, at the time of take-off of the university. When it became autonomous, the university started with three faculties, a few students and a handful of staff. Today, the university has 22 faculties, over 30,000 students and has over 8,000 staff, meaning we have come of age.
Fifty years ago, we started from a secondary school campus called Duke Town Campus but today we are no longer in secondary school buildings; we have a sprawling edifice across the campus. When it started, the pioneer students told stories that they had no light, their hostels were mosquito-infestedl but today at least there is electricity. It may not be constant but there is a whole lot of improvement. The programmes that started then were very few. Today, we have curriculum expansion with more than 120 departments and over 130 different programmes, meaning that there is cause for us to celebrate. We have also produced very quality and distinguished alumni who are playing their roles across the world. In Nigeria here, we have very distinguished alumni holding great positions. In oil and gas, we have key players like ABC Orjiakor; in the banking industry, the MD of Zenith Bank is an alumnus of the university. In politics, we have the Senate President, the Deputy Speaker and many distinguished senators, and House of Reps members across the country. We have produced like four governors and many deputy governors; in academia, we have so many professors, and we have produced a number of vice-chancellors across the country and even beyond. In the medical field, we have so many of our medical doctors in the United States who are making their mark. In the legal field, we have judges, even in the Supreme Court, Appeal Court, high courts and senior advocates. So, in 50 years we have really produced men and women who are impacting on the society and that is why we are celebrating 50 years of impactful service, knowledge and service to humanity. My own administration has reinvigorated, re-engineered, and repositioned the university for academic excellence, greater achievements and quality graduates that can compete favourably with their counterparts from across the world.
What vision do you have for the university’s future and how do you plan to build on its successes in the coming years?
I have put in place a number of policies and projects that will support the university in the future, especially in the area of programmes, that the university will have a better financial base. The university should take education online, we should take it out of the classroom to meet the learners wherever they are and that is the policy direction of even the government. I have introduced Open and Distance Learning Education. It is a hybrid system that I have introduced on and off campus.
What are you doing in the area of curriculum expansion, accreditation and result management?
In terms of curriculum expansion, what we have done holds so many benefits, which the next administration can take off from. Programmes that lacked accreditation when I came on board have full accreditation now, so the next administration will have time to settle down for three years before they begin to struggle to get accreditation. Even with professional accreditation, we have them in a number of our programmes. In the area of academic excellence, I have repositioned the result management system of the university such that students’ examination results can be uploaded into a very robust examination portal. Students can now access their results from any part of the world.
The University of Calabar is graduating over 13,000 students this year, with 66 first class graduates; how have you prepared them for the challenges ahead?
Our university does not just prepare students academically, we build their skills using our Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC) and career services we offer our students. Our EDC goes a step further to prepare them for the world of work, in addition to the certificates they have.
Our career centre just came on board and, for students who are graduating this year, the director and his team have been going round from faculty to faculty trying to put students across the pathway of the world of work. We also have exchange programmes for them. There was a time we brought Tony Elumelu Foundation to come here and act as a mentor and make them access external support and collaborations. There are a whole lot of our students who are volunteers in international agencies and do travel out. We have built the capacities of students to a level where when they go for interviews they will do much better than their colleagues. Our student-friendly hub is geared towards developing the leadership potential of our students, preparing them for the future. We have leadership training programmes for them and a whole lot of programmes that these students have been exposed to.
How come your institution is graduating such a high number of over 13,000 students this year with 66 of them being awarded first class degrees?
These students are the ones who finished their exams in August last year. Last year, we finished our final exams in October and by March we graduated, which is something that never happened in the last few years in the university. So the there is fact that results are being prepared now, students have more comfortable classrooms and reading environment. We do provide students with power at least at night for them to read, and the relationship between the administration and the students is so cordial that they can meet with management without fear of intimidation. The administration is always going out to see that students are not victimized. These are the things that have made students sit up to read. We also came up with a very robust Quality Assurance Directorate that monitors students, right from their examinations. They monitor to see what they are doing and how they are writing examinations. They review the scripts to see if the students merited the grades. This has made students sit up. They now know that it’s not business as usual. This is why I am so proud of the first class graduates I have now. With 66 first class graduates, it still shows that we are shrewd with marks. We are graduating 13,000 students, with only 66 first class and they merit the grades they got.
Electricity is a major challenge with public universities in Nigeria, how are you facing this challenge in your institution?
Since I came on board, I have given special attention to the power supply for the simple reason that there is no way you can encourage academic work for staff and students when there is no light. Before I came on board, there was a time that for over one year we never saw public power supply and have changed the narrative. But, good enough, in the last few months, the solar farm has kicked off. They are doing a trial run where we expect to have 15 to 18 hours of electricity daily. We appreciate the federal government that brought that project to us. I came in and knew that UNICAL was listed as one of the beneficiaries of the project and took it up. Even if it’s a federal government project not funded by us, not even supervised by us, I monitored daily the progress of work in that place and, today, we are happy for it .
UNICAL has been noted over the years for its large number of abandoned projects; what’s the state of these projects?
We have undertaken the completion of a number of abandoned projects, which has been an albatross on the universoty, posing a problem in accessing new interventions from funding agencies. When I came on board, our university was known by our supervisory bodies and funding agency TETFund as the university with the highest number of abandoned federal government-funded projects. Today, the trajectory has changed. Some of the completed projects include abandoned Pharmaceutical and Medical Pharmacy Building, abandoned Pharmacy Administrative Building, Faculty of Education Ultra-modern Building, and Faculty of Science Building, among others. I’ll be leaving the institution with virtually no abandoned project, outside those that have structural defects. I’ll be completing all and leaving no abandoned project.
What’s the major challenge facing the university over the last 50 years?
Encroachment into the university’s land that was willingly given to the federal government. Perhaps because of economic challenges, increase in the human population, there is a whole lot of encroachment on the university’s land. I fear for the university because in the next 20 to 40 years, we will virtually not have land for development and expansion any longer. Part of our land is over the water. I understand that it was not surveyed and has been encroached on and taken over. Even parts that were surveyed and we have every document have been encroached upon. So, this is the greatest challenge of the university.
What plans are afoot to address this challenge?
I have spoken with the government, the last administration of Senator Professor Ben Ayade promised to intervene and directed the Surveyor-General to wade into it. We didn’t get much attention. I’m sure Senator Prince Bassey Otu will do something more concrete in that direction.
Where do you see UNICAL in the next 50 years?
As one of the universities to be reckoned with in the comity of universities in the world. I see a university that would have gone more global and international. A university that people don’t necessarily need to come to Calabar to enroll; a university that will take education to people at home, that’s the future of the University of Calabar.
Your tenure is winding down, so what advice would you offer your successor to keep pace with the present level of development in the institution?
It’s the issue of priority. It’s not as if I had more money, it’s just that we managed funds more judiciously. The university should come first before personal interest. That has been my policy thrust. I expect UNICAL not to be known for the negatives. We should always be known for the positives.