UNICAL introduces 25-year plan to strengthen workforce, curriculum

The University of Calabar (UNICAL) says it has developed a 25-year plan to strengthen its workforce and curriculum.

The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Florence Obi, disclosed this on Tuesday in Calabar during an interaction with the media.

The media interaction is part of activities lined up for the 50th anniversary of the institution and the 37th convocation ceremony.

Obi noted that the paucity of funds was a major challenge for any public university, adding that it was the reason for the increase in money paid by students.

She explained that this is to enable the management to meet up with the increasing cost of running the institution.

“The Federal Government pays our personnel cost, but they don’t give us money to run the university; in fact, UniCal receives N13 million monthly as subvention which does not cover our electricity bill before solar was introduced.

“So, we depend on the funds from the students; that is why we have to expand our student base by introducing the Open and Distant Learning Programme, which will give us more students without affecting the institution’s facilities.

“The University of Lagos has more than 30,000 students on campus but well over 100,000 students off campus through the Open and Distant Learning Programme which has no effect on the facilities on campus,” she said.

The V-C, while noting that they could not continue running the institution as an on-campus programme alone, said that with 50,000 Open and Distant Learning Programme students, the university would have enough money to maintain facilities.

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She appealed to the media to help the institution sell its Open and Distant Learning Programme, noting that the graduates also enjoy the benefit of the on-campus students such as the one-year National Youth Service Corps.

“We have also introduced the top-up programme which is for people who graduated from a university with a pass or third class or who graduated from a polytechnic with a Higher National Diploma (HND).

“The programme which is approved by the National Universities Commission will see these students come in, spend one year, and get a bachelor’s degree; we already have 63 graduands in this year’s convocation.

“We have also automated our examination and result portal so that students can see their results from any part of the world in one month; these were things I never enjoyed when I came in as VC, but have put in place for my successor,” she added.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Obi, the 11th VC of UNICAL and the first female to hold the position was appointed on September 10, 2020, and her tenure will expire in September 2025.