(Ilorin)
The Vice Chancellor, Kwara state University, Mallete, Prof. Muhammed Mustapha Akanbi, has stressed the need for complete reopening of schools in the country.
Mustapha Akanbi, who made the call while speaking during the NewsKeg programme of the correspondents’ chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalist at NUJ press centre, Kwara state in Ilorin said the earlier students go back to school, the better.
He urged the public should to learn to live with the COVID-19 pandemic by complying to safety protocols.
“Government has taken a bold and good step by allowing some particularly sets of students to resume. Some have been supporting online teaching and examinations, but we can never compare physical learning with online.
“The pandemic has posed a challenge to us, it is affecting private universities, some of them are sacking workers presently.
W”are currently at home because of the COVID-19 and government directive. If you askeme now I will tell you that the universities should be reopened immediately.
On Kwara State University’s preparedness toward resumption, he said “we are already fumigating our facilities, both in Malete and Ilorin. We have been doing online lectures for classes with large number of students.
“For those with seizable numbers, we have made plans to maintain physical distancing of two feets as recommended and also divide some into other lecture classes.
Speaking on food security, he said though COVID-19 19 had creat food insecurity, Kwasu had gone into solving the problem.
“KWASU had written a proposal to the CBN to fund its Agriculture programme, we plan to go into farming so as to be able to augment our finances and also assist our host and other communities” he said
“Our major challenges now is the Covid-19 pandemic which has prevented us to move at the pace we want. We rely more on our IGR to fund the university. The pandemic has really affected all sectors, including government, KWASU is not excluded.
One of the reforms I embarked upon is to introduce the much popular faculties systems instead of the college been operated before.
“KWASU will be self sustaining in the next five years without seeking loans from banks. One of my vision is to improve on our IGR.”
“One of my desires is for KWASU to have College of Medicine. My predecessor has began the process which I will be work on to see it completed. When we have college of medicine we will be able to go into more research and challenges like covid-19 will be summounted.
“A way forward for our professors is to ensure they go into quality oriented research.
“Research must be proving solutions to problems and not just for doing sake. It must spell out the benefits that would be derived. In few years from now, I believe KWASU wiil be far much better,” he said.
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