University lecturers have been advised to be more student-focused and friendly in their careers rather than to be concerned about publication of academic papers in order to get promotion.
These were the words of the Vice Chancellor, Ajayi Crowther University (ACU), Oyo , Prof. Timothy Abiodun Adebayo at the two-day capacity-building workshop organized by the Academic Planning Unit of the institution for all lecturers of the university in order to prepare them for the delivery of the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMAS).
Prof. Adebayo who was represented by his Deputy, Prof. Benjamin Olumuyiwa Popoola noted that the pedagogical methodologies of this modern time were drastically different from the old model style in which lecturers were seen as oracles of knowledge and the only reliable sources of information.
Today, according to the the ACU VC, “lecturers must be student-focused and friendly so that the main objective of education can be achieved”, adding, “lecturers must not just be concerned about publications of academic papers aimed at getting promotion and after the promotion, thus becoming laid-back.
The workshop which featured several paper presentations on different aspects of capacity building from various academics within the university community, including Prof. Ronke Ogunmakin of Faculty of Education, Dean, Post Graduate School and Chairman of all Deans, Prof. Joel Olatunde Ayodabo, Dr. Olufemi Ojo of Computer Science; among others, was as stimulating as it was inspirational.
In her paper presentation, Prof. Ogunmakin reminded her colleagues that Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were all about “massification” of education which requires training and retraining of lecturers, challenging the lecturers to brace up for the demands of the contemporary teaching methodologies.
The ACU Director of Academic Planning, Prof. Alabi in his own presentation which centered on Quality Assurance and Quality Control urged academics to be dynamic in their enterprise, asking, “how problem-solving are our research papers? How relevant are our publications?”
Prof. Alabi who identified input level, process level and output level as very critical to the success of any university, argued that there must be adequate safeguards in the knowledge production process of the university in order to guarantee its image and ranking.
The workshop was well attended.