By Joseph Joy and Timothy Nwobodo

Regarded as the engine room of every university, the role of the Directorate of Academic Planning in the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT cannot be underestimated.

Considered the grease that oils the wheel of the University’s academics vehicle, ESUT Monitor had an exclusive chat with the Director of the Academic Planning, Professor Chike Anibeze. 

The Former Dean of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences spoke on his position, the importance services the directorate is rendering to the university as well as the implementation of Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards, CCMAS.

Excerpts.

Biography

I am Chioke Anibeze, a Professor of Anatomy in the College of Medicine. I am from this state (Enugu), Ezeagu local council to be precisely. I started my career at Abia State University where I was made a Professor in 2006. I rose to become the Deputy Provost there.

It was in 2012 that I shifted my services voluntarily to ESUT and decided to come in here. I was the pioneer Dean of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, and I established the Department of Anatomy as a BSc programme. It was during the administration of the former Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Charles Eze, about two years ago, that he now decided to bring me from College of Medicine to be the Director of Academic Planning and work closely with the management.

That’s how I came here and I’m on this table now.

What is your daily routine like, how do you prepare an annual academic calendar for the University.

Just like you said, this office is like the engine room of the entire system in any University, because the gamut of what we do entirely lies with academics. That’s why we’re all here, teaching the students and carrying research and so on. It presupposes that the office of the DAP (Director of Academic Planning) is something the University takes very serious. It’s not an easy thing I must tell you, because you have a situation where you are doing the internal academic planning, and then you are also interfacing with other external regulatory bodies.

DAP (Directorate of Academic Planning) is the University’s liaison officer to both Tetfund, NUC and others. If there’s anything the NUC wants to do with any University, their contact man first and foremost is the DAP. That is why, for somebody to sit on this table, the person must be on alert always because the letters will be coming. For instance NUC will tell you, if we send letters to the VC and he doesn’t reply, we won’t say anything, because each copy of letter they send to the VC, they’ll send to the DAP. The onus lies on you to ensure a quick response. If it is one that requires the VC’s attention, you get the information they need, write a letter, he goes through it and then you scan and send. So it keeps you on your toes.

 I am 24 hours virtually on my laptop, and when you have a Vice-Chancellor like we do, that is equally very digital, it makes the work easy for you, because sometimes I don’t need to see him, just get your laptop, type the letter, send to him, he does his own he has everything in his system, and by the time he finishes, he sends it to me and I will scan and send to NUC or the appropriate quarters. It works out smoothly for all of us, so coming down to the table, that’s the internal processes. 

Of course, as the DAP, I am the chairman of the editorial calendar committee, so we structure the planning of the academic calendar for each session. For instance, this year we had done it before and the management has already approved it. The session has already started on the 23rd of October, then we slated 21st to vacate up until the 8th of January when we resume. With this management, the VC has seriously stuck with the Academic calendar. If we have structured each sessions with the Senate Approval, he sticks to it. That’s why he doesn’t joke with the Academic calendar. It’s a very big plus for him, it wasn’t like that previously.

When is the date for the first semester examination?

The first semester exam, given the way we structure it, baring all things will come towards ending of February. However, certain things may come up against it, because when we are making the academic calendar, we must have in mind that NUC directs that each semester, you must have a minimum of twelve weeks of academic learning. We factor that and we don’t joke with it. You must have at least one week for revision, and then you slot another three weeks for the exams. The Easter period, we take it into consideration as well.

Sometimes we have these Muslim holidays and we make ancillary provision within a week or two weeks, but whatever is the situation, before ending of January, when it is expected that you must have gone halfway, or more than, another notice is issued which will concretize the date for the examination.

Is there any tentative date for Matriculation?

Matriculation is there in the academic calendar but I will not specifically say there’s a date because the recent development is indicative of the fact that before you fix matriculation, you must have cleared with JAMB, It has to be in January certainly, left for the VC, he would want to conclude everything before Christmas.

The implementation of CCMAS in the University appears to be generating controversy among the lecturers with regards to management’s posture. What is CCMAS and how is the implementation like in ESUT sir?

To talk about CCMAS, let us start with the meaning:  CCMAS stands for Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards, which is a new university curriculum that has been approved by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and the NUC (National Universities Commission) is just masterminding it. They have approved that this replaces the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) which is what we have in existence,

The BMAS for now, the second years will continue with it. The simple difference is that BMAS is all talking about minimum academic standards, but the CCMAS is a situation whereby the NUC felt that they are creating the minimum standards for the universities, almost like hundred percent and the you have just a little window to add one or two courses that is just a relative thing which is insignificant. In other words they’re almost giving you the minimum benchmark hundred percent.

With the CCMAS now, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors interfacing with the NUC, agreed that there should be local contents in what we’re doing. For instance, a university in the Niger-Delta, shouldn’t have the same curriculum with a university in the arid areas. The Niger-Delta people might have their focus with issues relating to aquatic life, the other people are having their focus mainly on savanna issues. This now made them to come up with this CCMAS, in which the indigenous university will produce thirty percent of the contents, They use the university lecturers to equally gather the seventy percent using the format, produce thirty percent indigenously based contents on specific geographical and cultural peculiarities of where the university is situated.

Then add to the contents to make hundred percent. This thing has started long ago. We had sensitization and training for the lecturers. We tutored all the various programmes in the University on how to generate their own thirty percent giving them the format. We had CCMAS committees along the line, at the Departmental, Faculty and Senate levels. It will pass through the committees and ultimately to the Senate committee on CCMAS which I am a member and once we endorse it, it goes to the DAP and then to the VC for final approval. When it is approved, it is sent back to the NUC and then stamped, we now know that for that programme, this is the hundred percent, and that’s exactly what we have done for all the sixty one programs in ESUT.

We recently had resource verification for five departments which the NUC gave us the endorsement to commence with the 2023/2024 session. Ultimately we’ll have about sixty-eight programmes for this session. What is the VC clamoring about? You know that the session has started, the CCMAS has been approved by the NUC and Committee of Vice-Chancellors to start in this 2023/2024 academic session. We know the registration process that students have to register their courses before anything. So we gave a deadline, that lecturers must finish the compilation and certification of all those courses so that we upload them before a specific date, so that the new students will be able to register because they are registering with the CCMAS, and it’s not there with ICT as at then.

At the stages we are, we should be able to multi-task, my office doesn’t do one thing, I am coordinating CCMAS, I am coordinating the accreditation. I teach Neuro Anatomy and Research Methodology up till now, the VC the same thing, he goes to teach in Political Science. Even when I appealed to him, he said we’re not stretching anything, people who will not beat the deadline, there’s nothing we can do about it.

That is what resulted to the seemingly type of punitive measure they’re complaining about some people not getting their salaries. But once you finish, you’re certified so that the students will take off, they pay you your salary.

These local contents, are they going to be GS courses or peculiar to departments?

Not GS courses, they’re peculiar to departments. For instance my own programme Anatomy, I was part of the drafting committee. We thought of Anatomy, what is indigenous to us, and then we came to the fact that there are some kind of Anatomy the others are not studying which we have. We know Anatomy is the study of body parts generally, but there are dimensions of its study. If you check our own cultural dimensions of the study, you’ll see that our people had already started practicing the Anatomy; that is appreciation of the body parts through their sculpting. Some of you will know what we call “Ikenga”, if you look at the Ikenga, it’s ancient. In fact, I wrote a paper I submitted at the International Federation for Association of Anatomy, London in 2019, immediately I finished presenting the paper, they picked it up and told me to bring the details, and it is now published in the British journal of Anatomy. Why did they immediately accept it? Because they know it is indigenous to us, they don’t know about it.

Your local contents may rot with you and you’re busy chasing other things that people already know. CCMAS is all about diversification and entrepreneurship, based on indigenous contents. These are all the variables drivable from the CCMAS.

It’s a novel idea, because ultimately, NUC is also saying that the thirty percent they’re talking about will soon increase. It’s not cast on stone, gradually until you can completely claim ownership of your environment. Remember that the essence of the University is not just to do the routine teaching and learning what is in the textbook. You need to imbibe 21st century skills, critical thinking, creative thinking – these are what will be embedded in the students so that they’ll be able to appreciate their environment and ask questions about what happens around them, not just what they’re given.

Any update on the planned unbundling of Mass Communication department?

The update is that the NUC has put that in the recommendation, it’s even in the CCMAS, that Mass Communication should be unbundled into seven different programmes. They have listed the programmes, universities are now going to pick up and start the unbundling, but this depend on the carrying capacity of the University. You must not strive to start with seven programmes, it’s the same thing we’re talking about. Looking at your environment, we might start with four, five or three to take off, and then it becomes a Faculty of its own.

The plan is already there, remember that you people have satisfied the issue of Physical facility in terms of building. You already have a building that can give you that. The VC is already interested in it, he doesn’t want to do things just ad-hoc like that. Currently we’re having a strategic plan for the University, we’re trying to see if we can structure and put it into our strategic plan and know whether it will come up next session or the session after that as the case may be, but already it’s in progress.

Your view about Esut Monitor Newspaper

I have seen the paper and read it. I appreciated it, but what struck me most is that this is the first time we’re having people trying to be inquisitive and detailed about what is going on around us. You people are doing something different.

Immediately I got your call requesting to have a chat with me, I said these people must be very serious. This is scholarly, that’s what we’re doing here. You need to commend people when they get it right and also critique where necessary. It’s for you to search deep and know, these are the vital things that should uplift the system. Then you go and be able to nose it out. You searched me out, I must commend you people honestly for that.