MY STEWARDSHIP AS 12TH VICE CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, 2015-2020

MY STEWARDSHIP AS 12^TH VICE CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, 2015-2020

Professor Idowu Olayinka recently completed his five-year term as the 12^th Vice Chancellor of the University Nigeria on the 1^st of December, 2020. His humongous achievements are contained in a 326-page electronic document which he has made publicly available: My Stewardship as Vice Chancellor, 2015-2020. This availability means that the Vice Chancellor has a feeling that he acted in office as a public servant, and should provide the public with his stewardship as a servant. This is a way of inviting everyone to not only note his achievements but to also attempt to confirm the veracity of his claims, learn from his actions and place commendations when impressed (and criticisms when not).

In the next weeks, we shall run a thematised series on the achievements of Idowu Olayinka as a public servant at the University of Ibadan starting with his activities in the academic aspects of university life, the most important area when it comes to the university system.

MY STEWARDSHIP: ACADEMIC MATTERS – IDOWU OLAYINKA

1. Convinced that critical thinking is increasingly becoming indispensable in a knowledge economy, we expanded the scope and content of the General Studies course on ‘Philosophy and Logic’ to emphasize critical thinking. The new course ‘Philosophy, Logic and Critical Thinking’ was made ‘Required’ for all undergraduate students, irrespective of their course of study, as from the 2016/2017 Session.
2. Introduction of Peer Assisted Study Session (PASS).

This is a student-led, student-focused approach to learning support which empowers students to take control of their own learning under the guidance of senior students who have previously and successfully completed the targeted course.  Following approval by the Senate, PASS was introduced during the 2016/2017 Session, making the University of Ibadan one of the nearly 1,500 institutions in 30 countries in the world that operate this Scheme. We identified some of the historically difficult courses at the 100 level in the Departments of Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics  kick off PASS.

Specific  goals of the PASS scheme for University of Ibadan include:

• Helping first year students develop strong academic skills and active learning competencies; cultivating leadership skills and confidence in PASS leaders; and improving understanding of courses.
• An enhanced learning and feedback system without additional workload for academic staff. This, indeed, is an important consideration in a research-intensive university.
• An improvement in grades in traditionally difficult courses, thus increasing the number of students graduating with good grades.
• Evidence of additional guidance and support which is run by students for students and demonstrates commitment to student experience.
• Evidence of quality, cost-effective student support for subject review or institutional audit.
• Provision of strong links between year groups which can help develop a more cohesive course culture and increase the level of student involvement in and ownership of learning.

4. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) selected the University of Ibadan for the establishment of a TETFund Centre of Excellence in Multi-Disciplinary Studies in October 2020. An allocation of One Billion Naira (N1,000,000,000.00) was made in November 2020 for the same purpose.
5. Strengthening of the Policy on Continuous Assessment

The Federal Government, in the National Policy on Education (1977, now revised severally) made provision for the use of continuous assessment as an integral part of the overall students’ assessment. In specific terms, the FGN (2013) made the following provision on continuous assessment. ‘Continuous assessment and school examination shall be on a ratio of 40:60 and shall be used as basis for advancement from one class to another in both public and private schools’, (p.13). The Senate of the University of Ibadan too, at one of its recent sittings, approved a revised policy on the implementation of continuous assessment and decided that academic units should increase their continuous assessment scores to 40% from the initial 30%.

The attention of academic units was drawn to the fact that the principle of continuous assessment stresses the need to give adequate attention to the three important domains of cognitive, affective and psychomotor. One implication of this is that it becomes practically impossible for students to score 0% in any course such a student registered for and for which s/he attended lectures for the whole or a reasonable part of a semester. The need to follow best practices in the conduct of continuous assessment is the desire to help students to improve their overall performance and class of degree.

The immediate challenge of the recent decision of senate on the implementation of continuous assessment is the need for all academic units to conform with the decision and ensure that continuous assessment is no longer based on one singe test that is often conducted towards the end of the semester as was the practice before. It is also to ensure that continuous assessment test scores are made available to students early enough in the semester. Academic units were expected to, while being flexible in the implementation of the policy, ensure that continuous assessment tests are marked and discussed with students before the semester examination. The advantage of discussing with students is that the feedback will further propel students to do well and work harder before their semester examination.

The University is aware of the fact that it is not all academic units that have fully complied with the new directive of the need to conduct more than one continuous assessment test, avoid waiting until too late in the semester before continuous assessment tests are administered and give more than one tests in the course of the semester. The implication of this is that the benefit derivable from the continuous assessment by student is lost.

The implication of the above is that students do not fully benefit from the advantages that are derivable from a liberalised continuous assessment practice. The results of most 100 level students across the University now that pass mark is 45% have, once again, drawn the attention of University management to the need to revisit the implementation of continuous assessment and ensure that all academic units conform to the decision of Senate on the exercise. This is with a view to finding out what can be done to address the negative trend without compromising the high academic standard for which the University is known.

Arising from the above, therefore, it became imperative for the Senate to take a second look at the current arrangement in place in academic units and suggest practical steps that will make the implementation of continuous assessment truly liberalised and beneficial to the students.

Senate approved in 2017 that, henceforth, academic units should ensure that:

1. More than one test or assignment is to be conducted within a given semester;
2. Continuous assessment scores should begin at the beginning of the semester and run through the period when such scores are expected to be deposited with Heads of Departments;

• The three domains of cognitive, affective and psychomotor are taken into consideration in the determination of continuous assessment scores in a semester;

1. The 40 marks allotted to continuous assessment have to be spread to reflect the totality of what students do in terms of quizzes, conduct in and out of class, theatre, laboratory, etc, class participation, group work, practical/field work, assignments, class attendance, presentations and texts;
2. One week, ostensibly the sixth or seventh week of every semester, be set aside for the conduct of the major text that constitutes part of the total continuous assessment scores. During this week, such texts are to be conducted, assessed and discussed with students to enable them to use such as a basis for improvement and preparation for the semester examination;
3. Heads should ensure that continuous assessment scores in a semester are ready latest by the tenth week of the semester and submitted to departmental examination officers before the commencement of semester examinations. This is the standard practice in universities in Ghana and some other parts of the world;

• Continuous assessment scores would be expected to be uploaded into the appropriate University bank when the platform is fully ready and deployed for examination in the University;
• Structures must be put in place to ensure that all loopholes in the implementation of continuous assessment in the University are blocked. This will make it impossible for lecturers to violate the guidelines put in place to support the implementation of continuous assessment in the University.

5. Establishment of new Faculties

The following four five Faculties were established during the tenure:

• Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources
• Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences
• Faculty of Environmental Design and Management
• Faculty of Multi-Disciplinary Studies, with the following:
  • Department of Peace, Security and Humanitarian Studies (former Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies)
  • Department of Sustainabilty Studies (former Centre for Sustainable Development)
  • Department of Data and Information Science (former Africa Centre for Information Science)
  • Department of Mineral, Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (former Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law)
  • Department of Bioethics and Medical Humanities (dual affiliation with the Faculty of Clinical Sciences)
• University of Ibadan School of Business was upgraded to a Faculty status headed by a Dean with the following arms:
  • School of Business
  • Department of Business Education and Training
  • Centre for Enterpreneurship and Innovation
  • Centre for Intellectual Property and Commercialization

6. The Centre for Educational Media Resource Studies was re-designated Department for School Library and Media Technology, the only one of its type in Sub-Saharan Africa
7. The following new Institute was established:
   • Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine
8. Establishment of new Academic Departments

23. Approval/Establishment of new Academic Programmes
    • Sc Biology (Jointly run by the Departments of Botany, Zoology and Microbiology in the Faculty of Science)
    • Bachelor of Environmental Health Sciences (B.EHS) Programme, Faculty of Public Health.
    • Ed (Educational Technology) programme in the Department of Science and Technology Education.
    • Sc (Education-Computer Science) programme in the Department of Science and Technology Education.
    • Ed (Business Education) programme in the Department of Educational Management.
    • Sc in Urban and Regional Planning
    • Sc in Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering
    • Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm D) Programme in the Faculty of Pharmacy.
    • BSc in Automotive Engineering degree option in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (with support from the National Automotive Design and Development Council)
    • Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm D) in the Faculty of Pharmacy
    • BSc in Quantity Surveying Programme.
    • BSc in Estate Management Programme
    • Sc in Monitoring and Evaluation in the Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics.
    • Sc. Agricultural Extension (Rural Sociology).
    • Sc. Agricultural Extension (Human Ecology).
    • . M.Sc. Agricultural Extension (Rural Development Communication)
24. Approval of the change of name from General Studies Programme to ‘Centre for General Studies’.
25. Approval of the proposal for the Establishment of the University of Ibadan Postgraduate School International Conference Travel Grants for Ph.D Students.
26. Approval of the proposal for Master in Paediatrics and International Child Health – M.Sc. Paediatrics and International Child Health M.Sc. (Paediatrics & Institute of Child Health)
27. We ensured the maintenance of an active academic environment by giving more professors the opportunity to present their Professorial Inaugural Lecture (PIL). Traditionally, there used to be one inaugural lecture per faculty per session. This sufficed in the past when there were very few professors in the University. In later years, with an increase in the number of professors this template became increasingly inadequate, giving rise to a situation in which many professors were only able to present their inaugural lecture many years after their elevation to that cadre. Moreover, many professors never had opportunity to deliver an inaugural, especially in very big Faculties with so many Professors. With a strong belief that every Professor should have an opportunity to present his/her inaugural, we were determined to change the staus quo by simply increasing the number of slots per Faculty per session. This decision was warmly received by all the Faculties and Institutes. Consequently, no less than 119 PILs were delivered during the period February 2016- February 2020. In comparison, 114 inaugural lectures were presented during the decade from 2005-2015.
28. In order to enhance the visibility of the University to the outside world, show case the contribution to learning by our academic staff and improve the relationship between the town and the gown, the Abstract/Executive Summary of each Inaugural Lecture is published on the University Website (https://ui.edu.ng/inaugural-series).
29. Some important aspects of inaugural lecture that define its nature, and which must be respected to preserve its integrity were presented to and approved by Senate. These include the Invitation cards/Banners/Posters, mode of dressing, content, length  and style of presentation, length of the acknowledgment section, and the Post-Inaugural Lecture Cocktail Reception
30. We provided two reading rooms for 24 hours Library Service at the Kenneth Dike Library during the 2017/2018 academic session, with a combined seating capacity of 550 students.
31. A Chat Room was commissioned at the Kenneth Dike Library, on 31 January, 2019. In contemporary times, it is almost impossible to keep young adults in a library for several hours without talking to one another. Besides, emergence of technology and its application to information delivery and services has not really helped in retaining users in a library building Rather, it has literarily driven users away from the physical library. In the last decade, academic libraries in the developed countries have evolved means of courting the friendship of library users anew. These include demarcating library spaces into the Quiet and Noisy Zones. The quiet zone(s) is like our Postgraduate reading room, which is meant for serious academic/research work with very minimal interactions amongst readers, while the noisy zones are spaces dedicated to group or collaborative work, socialising and relaxation. Academic libraries, particularly, in the developed world have reawakened to the fact that libraries are about people; how they learn, how they use information and how they participate in the life of a learning community. In short, libraries are now perceived as learning laboratories, an extension of the classrooms, hence, the zoning of library spaces to accommodate new interventions to maintain the interest of our students in the use of the library for various learning activities. Situating the Chat Room next to the Systems Unit is not accidental but intentional. The Wi-Fi signals are strongest on this floor compared to other floors in the Library. It is hoped that this will encourage our students to access available electronic databases or resources in the library.
32. Establishment of a Career Development and Counselling Centre. Since its take-off in January 2016, the Centre has been involved with Academic Enhancement Scheme under which students are grouped into three, namely Sharp Droppers; Top Flyers and Students on the Borderline; Counselling Sessions for Sharp Droppers, Recruitment / Placement Drive, Career Sensitization Programme; Online Presence and Counselling for Reabsorbed Students
33. Development of a Policy on Handling of Laboratory Equipment by Students.
34. Approval of Undergraduate Convocation Keynote starting with the November 2018 Convocation.
35. The University acquired a High Performance Cluster (HPC) which is the most important equipment for people doing theoretical computations and simulations during the first quarter of 2019. Hitherto, many Nigerian scientists had access to HPC only through foreign institutions such as, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, and a host of other institutions spread across South Africa and Europe. Apart from the African University of Science and Technology (AUST) in Abuja, we are not aware that any Nigerian university had such an equipment. We have capable scientists, engineers and scholars in related disciplines to make good use of this research facility. A two-week training was facilitated by experts from the ICTP in April/May 2019 at the University of Ibadan for the optimal utilisation of the HPC. About 100 participants comprising academic staff and postgraduate students took part. Participation was equally extended to a few colleagues from sister Universities. This initiative will assist in no small measures in facilitating teaching and research in Data Science at the University of Ibadan.
36. ADEFSA Grant (96,870.26 Euros) awarded on 2 May 2019 for the establishment of a joint Master degree programme in Big Data and Automatic Language Processing between ARCIS, University of Ibadan and University of Paris, Naterre . The programme will commence in 2019.
37. We related well with parents of our students. An evidence is this beautiful WhatsApp message I received from a parent on 13th May 2020 whose son was offered admission into our B.Sc Architecture programme.

Dear VC,

I need to inform you that my boy has finally been offered admission into UI.  His profile has been updated to “Admitted” on UI admission website and we have commenced the registration process.

Sir, I wish to express my profound gratitude to you  for all your concerns and physical efforts. In spite of your high and exalted office, you stooped down to give a listening ear, even to our almost inaudible voice, which others of your status would have considered “the ranting of ants”. Thanks so much. You have really made me proud of you Sir and this great citadel called UI.

You have demonstrated a very rare spirit and have replaced our hitherto dampened spirit with excitement and joy.

Thanks once again. May the Almighty God reward you handsomely for this.

Remain blessed Sir.

‘Fola Odesola.

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MY STEWARDSHIP AS 12TH VICE CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, 2015-2020

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