Interview: “UBa Offers Attractive Professional Training, Courses”

Prof. Theressa Nkuo-Akenji, Vice Chancellor, University of Bamenda, talks on the professionalisation drive in the 2016/2017 academic year.

How ready is the University of Bamenda for professionalisation in the 2016/2017 academic year?

In spite of challenges of infrastructure and shortage of lecturers, the University of Bamenda, UBa, is poised to keep moving forward. The academic year is already effective, especially in our professional schools, while admission procedures will soon be completed for classes to resume in the faculties. The university will handle about 19,000 students in 2016/2017; meanwhile, our lecture theatres, classrooms, etc, offer only 10,500 seats.

This challenge is not peculiar to the State University of Bamenda. We pay tribute to some people of goodwill people and institutions for offering space, some of which we have refurbished. The Development Fund of the University of Bamenda is also around as a major plus. They plan to construct a lecture block of about 950 seats and other smaller classrooms. We also face acute shortage of staff and the few, including support staff, are overworked. All our schools and faculties need 1,000 lecturers to reach a near ideal level.

Are there any innovations envisaged in the new academic year in terms of professional training?

We expect to launch Post-graduate Programmes in all the departments of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences. This comes to add to Post-graduate programmes already offered by the Higher Institute of Commerce and Management.

In barely five years of existence, the University of Bamenda now mentors many private higher ins...