The Vice Chancellor Bingham University Karu ,Professor Haruna Kuje Ayuba ,a stunch academician ,administrator who rose through the ranks from graduation has all the while served in the corridors of education at different capacities .In this interview with Francis Nansak ,he spoke extensively on how he has over the past one year in office as VC Bingham University attracted Development and academic advancement that has impacted both learning ,staff welfare and promoted good relationship between the university and its host community.Exerpt…
Good morning Prof ,may I know how as a VC the past one year you have initiated ideas that helping impacting this institution?
Thank you very much for creating the time for this interractive session with us.First and foremost ,I like to say in terms of academics progression,I have been in the academics all these years since I finished my first degree in 1989.i started work as a graduate assistant and rose to become a professor in 2007 ,that is at the University of Maiduguri and in terms of leadership position, I have held several leadership positions .As head of departments, Director of research ,director of academic planning ,deputy vice chancellor academic ,which is in Nasarawa State University Keffi, and currently the VC Bingham since January 2024.So when i came on board as Vixe Chancellor of this institution,I introduced what I called The Value Addition Action Plan.And I clearly spelt out some of the things I will be doing as VC .One of such is, to increase the visibility of the university ,and how are we going to do that, I insisted that every staff must have an institutional email, and also insisted that every academic staff must put their repositions ,journals and books in the university’s library .And not too long after that, I initiated within 3 to 4 months and we posted the visibility of the university with a U.K based organisation called ” Open Doors” registered Bingham University as among one of the universities in that repository which is known as the U.K Open Doors Repository .That is in terms of visibility.
Then coming to infrastructural development ,as we speak there are Seven ongoing projects ,you know we have Two campuses .The Karu campus and Jos campus .The Seven projects going one are students hostels ,the laboratory and the law library while the second project is for the Innovation show Room.That is as far as for infrastructure development is concern.For staff welfare ,to the glory of God ,we have oncreased staff salaries by 25% ,this is because of the reality of the economy which makes it difficult for staff,so we took proposal to council and our board of Trustees and they approved it.For students welfare,which i earlier stated that we are constructing more hostels,infact 3 hostels are under constructions,we also purchased some sports equipments for the students as we want them to participate in sporting activities,just as you know it is said ” All Work and no Pqlay makes Jack a Dull Boy” so we have sporting equipments added to our development.And in terms of Academic programmes ,we have increased the numbers of our academic programmes from 40 to 46 ,post graduate programmes have risen from 40 to 58, as NUC approved additional 18 programmes over the third one year.And just yesterday,i got the report from NUC that Six of our programmes had been accredited and we got 90%.That means Five of the programs have been fully accrediitated and one has interim.interim here means that it has two years span.NUC is coming again for another accreditation so by and large,I think God has helped us and in terms of staff promotion,we have additional 16 professors in the past one year and closed to 25 associate professors and then staff who applied for upgrade and promotion ,we have over 100 that have been upgraded.We also employed in recent with the approval of council about 80 staff to filled the gaps.
VC sir,can you elaborate more on the status of your e- Library.Secondly, tell me about your relationship with the host community?
First, on the e-library ,you know that may be in Nasarawa State or in Nigeria at large Bingham University is one among the few universities that continued learning during the COVID-19 ,while other schools shut down.Our session did not stopped because we had a robust e-learning management platform,so we engaged our students online and you know they are internet servie and we took advantage in that and our ICT centre is also a Jamb accrediitated center which is also the zonal test center for the Nursing student and each time they come to access our facilities they give us approvals,so we took advantage of what we have to ensure that our students and academic calendar is not impacted negatively and that helped us during COVID-19 .Which I think must of the private institutions are picking up now and have learned the lesson of COVID-19 ,that e -learning platform is the way to go.And to respond to our relationship with the host community, I want to assured you that we have a robust relationship with our host community.Infact,we are fixing a meeting that which a committee has been instituted.We call it “The Town And The Gown’ the university being the gown ,while the host community is the Town.So we have representatives of various stakeholders from traditional rulers ,associations and representatives of different agencies being part of the town
Alright sir, Growth ,progress and successes can not be without challenges ,what are your challenges in the last one year?
Thank you for that question,the challenges we have are the same challenges you have in must of the universities which is the issue of funding.Funding can never be enough because there is need to provide accommodations ,classrooms ,laboratories ,equipments and all of that .So funding poises a great challenge ,staffing sometimes you will need people in specialized areas ,but can’t find them and of course the JAPA syndrome .Those available would not want to stay ,so these are some of the challenges we faced in the university.
Prof your institution is faith based university ,like many others.What are you doing to leave an examplary administration that carries others along?
Yes , we re faith based university ,but it also offers equal opportunity ,provided you are willing to abide by the rules and regulations of the university
