The authorities of the Kaduna State University (KASU) on Tuesday began a three-day retreat to reposition the institution for global competitiveness.
The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdullahi Musa, who disclosed this at the opening of a retreat at Fifth Chukker Resort, Kaduna, said that the goal was to enable the university to solve societal challenges through research.
He said that a Teaching Excellence Initiative was underway to enable lecturers to improve their capacity for exemplary instruction and impart knowledge for skills, global competitiveness, self-reliance, and global employability.
He explained that the objective of the retreat was to provide a foundation for re-engineering and repositioning the school to become a key player in global university education delivery.
He added that the retreat was also to collectively develop a five-year action plan that would identify the university’s agenda and priorities.
“This will enable us to critically analyse the current state of the university, outline the university’s vision, identify the gaps and ways to address them.
“It will also help us find common ground for the teaching and non-teaching staff, students and alumni to have a common vision, mission, and common objectives that would take KASU to greater heights,” he said.
The vice chancellor said that the move was in line with his vision of making KASU a regional leader and a global player in quality university education delivery.
He said that his vision was based on the institution’s underlying philosophy of excellence in research, excellence in teaching, excellence in community services, and excellence in all the parameters of sustainable development.
“KASU should not be a mere educational institution that produces graduates but should be a leading institution of choice regionally and globally.
“Our goal is to create an environment that allows scholars to come up with solutions to societal challenges.
“However, we cannot make a positive difference, if we are not on the same page in respect to the university’s vision and mission,” he said.
Musa said that he would work with the university’s management to build a culture that encouraged lecturers and non-teaching staff to make a positive difference in Kaduna State, Nigeria and the world.
He noted that KASU required a reform to address the challenges of dysfunctional units and inadequate financial resources to achieve optimal research output.
According to him, the turnaround strategy will result in speedy and astonishing progress in research productivity, teaching excellence and financial performances.
The vice chancellor pledged to work with everyone without discrimination, stressing that a participatory approach to leadership would help in identifying and harvesting individual and group talents for the greater good of the university.
He stressed the need to develop a strategy that would enhance KASU’s working procedures by adopting new work procedures in place of outdated methods of operation.
“It is necessary for KASU to take the lead by doing away with outdated practices that do not work for us.
“We must embrace new practices and methods. This way we will be making quick progress on our most aggressive strategic plans, to instill research culture, teaching excellence and improve on our communal engagements,” he said.
Musa also identified motivation of academic and non-academic talents in the university and student-centred approach to content delivery as top priority areas.
