FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
Director Admissions, University Librarian, Registrar, (Prof. Na~Allah), Bursar, and Director Physical Planning.
On Thursday October 19, 2023, the Vice Chancellor University of Abuja received the management of Prime University who paid him a courtesy visit on campus. The purpose of the visit was to introduce the new leaders of Prime University to its mentoring institution.
The National Universities Commission (NUC) had earlier assigned University of Abuja to mentor Prime University through its foundation years. It has been the tradition of NUC to assign older universities situated within the operational location of newer institutions to mentor the new comers.
Professor Abdur Rasheed Na~Allah thanked the team for the visit and pledged that his university will support Prime University during its foundation years, which are the most critical for every institution. Professor Na~Allah assured that the University of Abuja is prepared to offer all the necessary guidance and support to inaugurate and grow Prime University.
The VC added that: “We have done this mentoring task before for several universities, and we are happy to offer the same service to your institution. Whenever you need us in any aspect, just let us know, we will readily be available to support you. I will also create time to personally visit your university, interact with your management, understand your philosophy, inspect your facilities, and see how best we can help Prime University move up and compete favorably in the increasingly tough arena of higher education management in Nigeria.”
Professor Na~Allah advised the university to focus on three critical areas namely: building a robust and functional institutional portal; ensuring that academic staff should not be hired based on their dry qualifying papers only, but dig deeper to see beyond the papers to ensure that their abilities rhyme with the papers they claim to have. Professor Na~Allah advised that dry papers that do not match a lecturer’s capacity or ability to deliver in the classroom is not acceptable. If their qualifying papers are clean but candidates cannot justify them in teaching and research, such candidates should not be considered for engagement. Thirdly, he advised Prime University to enforce strict supervision for lecturers to ensure that everyone does what he is paid to do. He noted that there are many professors especially in public universities who hardly attend their classes but instead assign their postgraduate students to teach on their behalf. This proxy teaching and lack of strict supervision of professors leaves a lot of yawning gaps in the quality of knowledge imparted in our students.
He said Prime University should not accept this practice from the onset. He added that for the university to live up to its billing, it must define its core philosophy from the beginning and ensure that it pursues its vision diligently.
Having spent ten years as founding Vice Chancellor of Kwara State University and five years at the University of Abuja, Professor Na~Allah is among the longest serving Vice Chancellors in Nigeria.
The Prime University delegation to its mentoring institution comprised of the University Librarian (Rilwan Abdulsalami), Bursar (Mustafa Atiku), Director Physical Planning (Abdullahi Abubakar), Director of Admissions (Dauda M. Iya) and the Registrar (Abubakar Abba Tahir).
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