From WOLE BALOGUN, Ado-Ekiti
Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) has trained her academic and non-academic staff on how to deliver on Quality Assurance (Q.A).The management of the university also plans to partner with the University of Lagos, Akoka (UNILAG) on effective and efficient service delivery.
The training came as a one-day Quality Assurance Workshop tagged: ” Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Issues and Practices”, organised by FUOYE’s Academic Planning Unit currently headed by a visionary Director, Prof. Cecilia Olufunke Akintayo, a Professor of Industrial Chemistry, who synthesized, planned, mobilized and beautifully executed the one day workshop.
The workshop, which was well attended by over ninety percent of the staff members, and top management functionaries led by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kayode Soremekun had a renowned higher education quality assurance expert, Prof. Chukwu Lucian Obinna, a former Director of Quality Assurance unit of SERVICOM and current Director of UNILAG’s Academic Planning unit as the guest speaker.
Prof. Obinna explained that Q.A is a practice that is germane to an institution such as FUOYE because it is targeted at setting a service delivery standard that guarantees customers’ satisfaction and overall improvement. He stressed the need to excise the quality assurance unit from the Academic Planning unit of the University
He identified the functions of a university to include teaching, research and community service, adding that to ensure an efficient performance on these functions, quality assurance has to be adhered to at the three levels of global, national and institutional practices.
The Q.A expert also told FUOYE staff and management that quality assurance practices exist at both internal and external organizational levels and that while the society expects employable and sound graduates, students expect efficient service delivery while the regulatory bodies expect them to meet up with the acceptable standards that guarantees constant improvement.
He said: ” Quality assurance is a planned, systematic activity implemented to provide confidence that a product or service will fulfil and maintain specified level of quality. The University must have a quality assurance policy in line with the goals of the institution. In doing this, the curriculum must be well developed, support processes such as admissions, hostels, and transportation, among others, must be well handled. Infrastructure, which involves human, capital, and physical amenities must be well provided and managed. Standards for appointing staff must meet regulatory bodies’ specification just as promoting them as and when due must be properly adhered to, among others.”
Prof. Obinna who gave other germane tips on quality assurance practices, praised FUOYE VC , Prof. Soremekun for approving the training, saying that it was an indication that the VC has a very good intention towards improving effective and efficient service delivery in the school. He also admired the way FUOYE has been managed and urged the management to set up a quality assurance unit as different from the already existing Academic planning unit.
Responding, Prof. Soremekun appreciated the Q.A expert and assured that his management team will work with the management of UNILAG to explore areas of cooperation in order to ensure effective and efficient service delivery to the students and staff of FUOYE as well as the larger community and other stakeholders.
“The idea of organizing trainings such as this is the need for a young institution of higher learning like us to be on top of our game. What the likes of first generation universities like UNILAG will do and get away with, we won’t be spared. So, we constantly have to be on top of our game. This is why we have ensured that both the academic and non-academic staff benefit from this training. The management has also been in touch with Prof. Jegede of the African Union for another training endeavour and we are engaging in all these development oriented programmes so as to ensure that in the next foreseeable decade, FUOYE has a bigger image.”
Also, speaking, the DVC, Prof Abayomi Fasina, assured Prof. Obinna that UNILAG and FUOYE will have a lot to do together in the nearest future on quality assurance as well as engaging in other research endeavours so as to ensure that FUOYE continues to march on to greater heights.
Prof Cecilia Akintayo, the Director of Academic Planning in her welcome address highlighted that the one day workshop is the beginning of the process of evolving a quality assurance policy for the University. The staff of the institution were pleased with the responses and answers given by the Q.A expert to some issues and questions they raised and they expressed their fulfilment and satisfaction with the well organized workshop.
