On February 19, the Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State, Dr. Abubakar Sadiq Yahya, with his team visited AUN to solicit collaboration in meeting its ICT challenges and other needs in Mubi.
"We are here to share with you our pressing needs in ICT, work with the AUN technical team and tap from the wealth of resources and experience AUN is endowed with," said Dr. Yahya.
Together with the Rector was Dr. Sulaiman S. Buba (Director, Special Duties), Dr. Musa Adamu (Director, Academic Planning), and Ahmad A. Musa (Director, ICT).
Mr. Musa enumerated some of the issues the polytechnic is bedeviled with such as limited bandwidth of 20 megabytes per second (MBps), which he noted is insufficient for the current 8,000 students on campus, inadequate technical know-how in aspects of networking, and prospects for expansion of the bandwidth at a discounted rate.
"We would appreciate it if AUN extends its CISCO Academy program to the polytechnic for our students to get certified before graduation."
Vice President for University Relations, Dr. Abba Tahir, told the delegation what AUN does and how it is done.
"We inculcate service-learning in our students through the community development course (CDV) to prepare them for leadership positions."
In today's era of advanced technology, Nigerian institutions need to focus more on training job creators just like AUN is doing because there are no jobs to seek, VP Tahir reiterated.
Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, Professor Muhammadou Kah, advised the team to work on having an integrated information system that do students registration, financial and academic records to which all staff and students can easily access.
"The integrated information system allows easy collection of data for analysis and keep track of the students' academic performance. Invest in the tools and your human resources to obtain the required expertise in system security and maintenance."
The Provost further advised the Polytechnic to engage the Federal Government and its education-funding bodies like TETFUND to support quality education to the students.
Chief Information Officer, Francis Chaming, showed the visitors some aspects of the university's IT infrastructures and assured them that his team was ever willing to assist in strengthening the polytechnic's ICT capability.
Interim Dean of the Graduate School, Professor Chris Mbah, highlighted the AUN graduate program's setup and flexibility for working-class people.
"Our graduate programs do not take away people from their work. They are free to focus on their jobs and gain exposure to the advanced ways of doing things while pursuing a qualitative Master's or Ph.D. degree with ease."
Dr. Mbah urged the Rector to motivate the polytechnic staff who are yet to have a Master's and/or the Ph.D. degree to enroll at AUN to obtain the required expertise to impact their institution and students.
Interim Dean, School of Engineering (SOE), Dr. Abel Ajibesin, who explained the School's state-of-the-art facilities suggested to the Polytechnic an upgrade of curriculum to qualify its HND graduates for admission into the AUN Engineering program to enable them to earn a Bachelor's degree in engineering at a discounted rate for three years as transfer students.
Director for Academic Planning & Quality Assurance and Professor of Marketing Communications, Dr. Samuel Tesunbi, praised the team for stepping forward to improve its system of learning and academic management.
Reported by Rofiat Adekunle