Undoubtedly one of the frontline private universities in Nigeria, Babcock University, Ilisan, Ogun State, through its operations and forays into ICT revolution and students’ mentorship has remained unrelenting in its drive towards excellence. In this interview with Emorinken Moses, its Deputy Vice Chancellor and College of Health and Medical Sciences provost, Prof. Iheanyi Chukwu Okoro beams more light on the institutions activities, achievements and products.
Babcock University is one of the few private universities with impressive stories to tell; can you give us a sneak peek into your activities so far?
Well, as we speak, students have started their exams, one of the things we have going for us is stability. By the grace of God, we have not missed a single day since 1999. And one of the factors responsible for this is the online revolution going on in the institution. Some of our courses are now taken online. Before now, marking, collation, and grading of the scores of students after an examination was an arduous task. You typically would find a lecturer having to mark and grade close to 500 students. However, some of our in-house ingenious staff in the ICT unit developed a software, which is now being used for exams. It was tried last year, and within 30 minutes the exams were concluded and the results came out swiftly.
This reduced the burden of collation of results for the lecturers. All they now have to do is input the data (scores) and the computer software automatically does the calculations and collation of results instantly.
Secondly, as a school, we place a premium on the behaviour of our students. We believe that education is more than imbuing academic knowledge to students, but also in the inculcation of ethical and scrupulous behaviours. We train their hearts and make sure that they behave well.
We have a way of monitoring their behaviour through a tool called the Behavioural Index. We monitor them in their hostels, chapel, class rooms etc. If a student has any infraction or misconduct, he or she is demerited’. Every student has a 60 demerit point; so as a student keeps misbehaving, his or her score reduces. It is like withdrawing from ones account. When you are zero, you go on suspension, and this affects your ‘citizenship grading’. Even if you have a first class, with a zero point of behaviour, you are not graduating because this affects your citizenship rating.
This form of assessment has also gone online. There is a central coordinating office called the BUMU office (Babcock University Merit Unit). The unit coordinates all the grades from the various points online, and they issue out the grades to the students at the end of a session.
The Total Classroom Revolution is simply leveraging technology in the deployment of learning and the learning environment. Currently, every classroom in the school has a projector and smart boards. You can also find radio towers at strategic positions within the campus. We intend to have a cloud all over the compound, so that students can access their lectures anywhere they are within the campus. Lecturers can upload courses, and students can refer back to it by downloading it.
All these congenial educational facilities are powered by electricity. Therefore, the school is investing heavily on a power project called Babcock Power Project, which will supply uninterrupted power round the clock. At first, we wanted to opt for a gas-powered turbine, but because of the huge cost of maintenance, we settled for a power generator that runs for 80,000 hours non-stop…on gas. By implication, it means it can run for 9 years at a stretch.
Due to the current economic recession in the country, the project has however been stalled a bit; but, with the Naira slowly gaining stature, we hope to push the project further.
Aside the generating power generator, there are some diesel-powered generators on ground as standby – they can run for 30 hours non-stop.
SOURCE
Babcock University is one of the few private universities with impressive stories to tell; can you give us a sneak peek into your activities so far?
Well, as we speak, students have started their exams, one of the things we have going for us is stability. By the grace of God, we have not missed a single day since 1999. And one of the factors responsible for this is the online revolution going on in the institution. Some of our courses are now taken online. Before now, marking, collation, and grading of the scores of students after an examination was an arduous task. You typically would find a lecturer having to mark and grade close to 500 students. However, some of our in-house ingenious staff in the ICT unit developed a software, which is now being used for exams. It was tried last year, and within 30 minutes the exams were concluded and the results came out swiftly.
This reduced the burden of collation of results for the lecturers. All they now have to do is input the data (scores) and the computer software automatically does the calculations and collation of results instantly.
Secondly, as a school, we place a premium on the behaviour of our students. We believe that education is more than imbuing academic knowledge to students, but also in the inculcation of ethical and scrupulous behaviours. We train their hearts and make sure that they behave well.
We have a way of monitoring their behaviour through a tool called the Behavioural Index. We monitor them in their hostels, chapel, class rooms etc. If a student has any infraction or misconduct, he or she is demerited’. Every student has a 60 demerit point; so as a student keeps misbehaving, his or her score reduces. It is like withdrawing from ones account. When you are zero, you go on suspension, and this affects your ‘citizenship grading’. Even if you have a first class, with a zero point of behaviour, you are not graduating because this affects your citizenship rating.
This form of assessment has also gone online. There is a central coordinating office called the BUMU office (Babcock University Merit Unit). The unit coordinates all the grades from the various points online, and they issue out the grades to the students at the end of a session.
The Total Classroom Revolution is simply leveraging technology in the deployment of learning and the learning environment. Currently, every classroom in the school has a projector and smart boards. You can also find radio towers at strategic positions within the campus. We intend to have a cloud all over the compound, so that students can access their lectures anywhere they are within the campus. Lecturers can upload courses, and students can refer back to it by downloading it.
All these congenial educational facilities are powered by electricity. Therefore, the school is investing heavily on a power project called Babcock Power Project, which will supply uninterrupted power round the clock. At first, we wanted to opt for a gas-powered turbine, but because of the huge cost of maintenance, we settled for a power generator that runs for 80,000 hours non-stop…on gas. By implication, it means it can run for 9 years at a stretch.
Due to the current economic recession in the country, the project has however been stalled a bit; but, with the Naira slowly gaining stature, we hope to push the project further.
Aside the generating power generator, there are some diesel-powered generators on ground as standby – they can run for 30 hours non-stop.
SOURCE
