PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By Tunde Uchegbuo
The Rivers State government has awarded contracts for the renovation of the Ndele and St John’s campuses of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt.
This was announced by the acting vice chancellor, Professor Okechuku Onuchuku, at the statutory meeting of the university Senate on Wednesday, July 27.
He also disclosed the award of a contract for the building of functional staff quarters to alleviate staff accommodation challenges.
“We will be having brand new campuses,” he declared.
These approvals are coming on the heels of authorization for the recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff in the institution to strengthen its capacity to deliver quality education.
For a long time, staff and students at the Ndele campus of the university had complained about what they termed the seeming neglect of the campus by successive administrations in the university.
The state of the campus, which had become a recurring issue, came up during the vice chancellor’s familiarization visit to the place after his assumption of office.
Addressing the staff and students, Onuchuku said the visit was for first-hand information and assured that the campus would be given the needed attention to bring it to par with the main campus.
To walk his talk, the vice chancellor reactivated the electricity generating set, replaced damaged power lines, purchased a new generating set for the technical department’s laboratories, rebuilt damaged fences, renovated the security department building, and upgraded the department of Agriculture to a full-fledged faculty.
Our correspondent reports that the proposed renovation aligns with the vision of Professor Onuchuku’s administration to make the campus more attractive to admission seekers, particularly for the newly established faculty of Agriculture.
“Beyond infrastructural development, the administration is committed to positioning the university among the best tertiary institutions in Nigeria. To that effect, it had set up two committees to review and harmonize its programmes in line with the National Universities Commission (NUC) benchmark.
“This is aimed at guarding the integrity of the degrees awarded to ensure that the university does not lose public trust in its capacity to train a competent workforce for the state and society in general.”
