By Raphael Okhiria
The Acting Vice Chancellor of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Professor Asomwan Sonnie Adagbonyin, has expressed optimism that, given the efforts of the present administration in charting new pathways of growth for the University in spite of the many challenges, the state-owned university would, in the next few years, regain its revered status among the comity of Universities in Nigeria.
Prof. Adagbonyin who stated this in Ekpoma when he received the Vice Chancellor of Mudiame University, Irrua, Edo state, Prof. Dajab Danjuma and his Management team on a courtesy visit, said: “we are managing a strong army of enthusiastic scholars and students in pursuit of their academic goals, and God is helping us.
“We are a technology-oriented institution. What has been our selling point for so many years is the way we have holistically embraced technology. Most of our processes are technology-driven. All our examinations at the 100 and 200 levels are conducted electronically, which has also made it easier for us to coordinate the large numbers, so that we can easily get those results, process them and make them available to our students as fast as we need to do.
“For this, we have also been rewarded by the Nigeria Technology Awards (NiTA). A few months ago, precisely, last December, we won 3 awards for: The Best State University Website, The Best State University in the use of technology, and The Best State University in the use of social media.
“This has made us to work assiduously on the processing of our results. As we speak, we have a process in place where certificates can be given to students within 48 hours of request. After applications are submitted, which is online, they are processed from the backend. The same with the transcript issuance process which is digital and in line with global best practices.
“There have been challenges, of course, but we took a decision to go back to start making digital versions of students’ transcripts dating from the time when the University graduated its first set of students up until 2016/2017 session. We had to embark on this project because when we came in digital copies of students’ academic records existed from 2016/2017 session upwards only so that when graduates of the University demanded for transcripts predating that session it was always a difficult task meeting their demands.
“The moral here is that our Management team is more determined to upgrade and make this university better than the way we met it. Whatever pocket of challenges we have encountered along the way, we have taken them on headlong. Ours has been to serve our University with everything we’ve got – our energy, time and talent.”
Earlier, the visiting Vice Chancellor, Mudiame University, Irrua, Prof. Dajab Danjuma, appreciated the Ambrose Alli University’s Management team led by the Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof. Asomwan Sonnie Adagbonyin for the good work aimed at repositioning the state-owned University.
“We are here today to interface with you as our elder brother institution with vast institutional experiences which would be of benefit to our own university.
“It is a responsibility on us to produce a generation of forward looking professional graduates for the country which demands a high level collaboration with concerned institutions which informed our visit with a view to exploring areas of possible collaboration,” Prof. Dajab Danjuma said.
The visiting Mudiame University Management team was later taken on a guided tour of parts of AAU facilities by the AAU Acting Vice Chancellor.
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