- The new Vice-Chancellor of Ekiti State University, Prof Edward Olanipekun, has pledged to ensure that there is improvement in the academic content of the institution.
The new Vice-Chancellor of Ekiti State University, Prof Edward Olanipekun, has pledged to ensure that there is improvement in the academic content of the institution.
Olanipekun, a professor of Industrial Chemistry, said the focus of his administration would be on how to prepare undergraduates of the institution for the competitive world through the provision of an enabling environment that would bring out the best in them.
The VC, who spoke at an event held in his honour last Friday, said, “I have a mission to improve the academic content of this school. The best way to improve the visibility of an academic institution is the quality of the input, in terms of research, from members of its academic staff. This is an area where we have to build capacity.
“If this is going to be the case, then, there must be improvement in the character and quality of staffing of this place. I am aware that for this to happen, the school authorities must provide an enabling environment. This is part of the policies we will be making in the course of our stewardship/.”
Olanipekun, who promised to run a students’ friendly administration at the university, said, “Our students-staff relationship must improve. The world has now moved to a point where students assess their lecturers. As a fact, staff promotion is contingent on positive assessment by students. This tells us the place of students in the scheme of academic programmes in the contemporary time”.
The VC said he would make the students the of EKSU the centrepiece of his administration, just as he would ensure quality staffing and restore the values and the dignity of the institution.
He said, “Our university has grown in leaps and bounds, in terms of structures and population. This is instructive, given its very modest beginning in 1982. I give kudos to my predecessors who toiled heavily to build this place. What I set out to do is to build on what these people have done”.
Olanipekun also promised that his administration would impact on the university’s immediate environment and ensure optimal utilisation of the products of its research through good governance and effective policy making.
“We shall be above board and ensure transparency, in line with the policy of the government of the day. We shall be accountable to the government that put us here, to the people who are watching us and to God Almighty to whom we shall return one day.”
