UNIZIK initiates new postgraduate programme
In the quest for academic greatness, part of the five-pronged strategy of actualising the vision statement of its incumbent vice-chancellor, Nnamdi Azikiwe Univesity has added eight new academic programmes to its College of Postgraduate Studies.
UNIZIK Vice-Chancellor Professor Charles Okechukwu Esimone, who made the revelation in an address during a thanksgiving service to mark his fourth year in office, also disclosed that the University has also set up a Maritime Institute in Onitsha through the intermediation of Hon. Linda Ikpeazu, Member representing OnitshaNorth/South in the 9th National Assembly.
He listed the newly established postgraduate programmes to include the Department of Quantity Surveying PhD programme, Banking and Finance MPHIL/PhD, Business Administration MPhil/PhD, Entrepreneurship PGD, M.SC and PhD and Centre for Eye Health Research and Training (CEHRAT) M.Sc in Community Eye Health.
Others are the Centre for Occupational Health, Safety and Environmental Studies (COHSES): PGD in Occupational Health and Safety, Institute of Oncology and Centre for Cancer Research M.Sc and PhD in Oncology and Centre for Sustainable Development M.Sc, MPCM in Peace and Conflict Management.
On Administrative Reforms, Prof Esimone said that notwithstanding the disruptions in academic and administrative activities of the nation’s universities as a result of ASUU strikes and COVID-19, UNIZIK under his watch has not allowed the implementation of the new staff conditions of service approved in his administration to suffer including welfare and promotion of staff.
To this effect, he disclosed that for the 2021/2022 appraisal year for the top echelon of academic staff career ladder positions, a total of 33 persons were promoted as Professors while 30 were also promoted as Readers in addition to many others promoted to lower positions as Senior lecturer, Lecturer 1 and11 and Assistant Lecturers.
For the non-teaching staff, he said 82 persons were promoted to top administrative positions on CONTISS 13 and above.
The vice chancellor in the 4th-anniversary address titled “Sprinting to breast the tape” said that under his administration, Nnamdi Azikiwe University has come more prominently into national and international limelight within the reach of his Project 200 Vision and that even as the journey to the final lap of the administration has commenced “we shall not coast to the tape like a long-distance runner, rather we shall sprint to the tape as with the dash in a hundred-meter race” he concluded.
