By George Edomwonyi
Ekpoma – Prof. Ignatius Onimawo, the Vice-Chancellor of the Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma, says that the institution’s academic and administrative operations were now fully digitised.
Onimawo disclosed this on Friday at Ekpoma, headquarters of the Esan-West Local Government Area of Edo, while rendering account of his stewardship since assumption of office.
He said the university’s Senate meetings were now computerised, adding that the institution had also commenced the conduct of its examinations through Computer-Based Tests (CBT).
“AAU is currently conducting computer-based examinations for 100 and 200 level students. And we are taking the CBT exam to the next level.
“We now operate E-paperless senate sessions, and computer-based students’ session examinations.
“Our results are uploaded in our websites as soon as the examinations are over.
“And because of the high internet visibility, we have successfully conducted an e-students union government election, where students voted electronically with their smartphones from their various locations,’’ he said.
Onimawo said that the enhancement of its ICT unit had also been extended to various units and departments of the university with the provision of e-learning multimedia teaching programmes, which will enhance the teaching and learning process.
The vice-chancellor said that the idea to fully digitise the operations of the institution was to enhance its service delivery and the growth of the university to a world-class level.
He said that the university had established a bakery, a fish pond and a fish processing unit, in order to boost its Internal Revenue Generation (IGR), to meet the needs of the institution.
“We have a fish processing unit, we have one of the best bread-producing AAU health bread, the essence of which is to increase our IGR.
“Resources from government are dwindling, our needs are increasing everyday. Therefore, we need alternative ways of raising our funds to meet our activities,’’ he said.
The vice-chancellor disclosed that the institution was already in the process of accessing a N1billion Needs Assessment Fund from the Federal Government, to boost infrastructure development at the institution.
“We are currently trying to access some fund which runs into a billion naira. As soon as we get the money, we are going to put befitting structures on ground.
“We are carrying out a training programme, we want to make AAU a hub of research; that area we have not done much on, that is the area we are emphasising in the next year, so that we have research activities in every faculty.
“As we unfold, we will continue to solve them. I think with AAU, the sky is the limit.
“We have the manpower, our staff is one of the best qualified in the country, it is just that they are not motivated, so we have come to motivate them.
“We want to put them to good use, we want to bring the whole world to AAU to tell them this is the best place things are happening, that is my vision,’’ he added.