NAN-H-99
Development
By Bushrah Yusuf-Badmus
Ilorin, Oct. 12, 2016 (NAN) The Vice-Chancellor of Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete near Ilorin, Prof. Abdulrasheed Na’Allah, on Wednesday urged universities and other institutions in the country to impact positively on their host communities.
The vice-chancellor gave the advice in Malete while declaring open the third edition of the Community Development Practitioners’ Consultative Workshop.
Na’Allah, represented by KWASU’s Dean of School of Allied Health and Environmental Sciences, Dr Henry Sawyer, also called on the institutions to identify the social needs of the communities for solution.
“When universities are established, they are situated in communities, but when these universities start functioning, they only develop their academia society,’’ he said.
Na’Allah said such societal development often excluded what was supposed to be the institution’s social responsibility or social impact in those communities.
“Consequent to that are the communal clashes that follow, involving the students and community residents.
“Therefore, institutions, either old or upcoming ones, must make the communities they are sited in as a theme of their establishment.
“They should ask themselves the question `if you can’t make an impact on your community, how do you impact on the larger society?’,’’ he said.
The vice-chancellor said the importance of the community in enhancing learning was the motive for KWASU’s motto of “University for Community Development’’.
Na’Allah said the workshop would be an eye-opener for other institutions to include community development in their programmes.
“The importance of the community can never be overemphasised. So, I think with this we will be able to draw a road map for positive development in communities hosting our institutions.
“This conference should serve as a model for institutions in the area of community development.’’
In his address, the Global Vice-President, International Association for Community Development (IACD), Prof. Mohammed Shittu, said it was unfortunate that only two universities in Nigeria were community focused.
“It is on record in Nigeria that only two higher institutions are community development oriented. They are KWASU and American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola.
“They are genuinely community-focussed and what I mean by this is that, all their underlining philosophy, vision and mission and programmes, both academic and research, are in the area of working with communities.
“It is sad that most of the universities do not align with the communities where they are sited.
“Even the ones that have been established for years don’t carry out community service engagements. They only do ad hoc programmes and think it is community development.
“Rather than do something for the communities, institutions should do something with the communities,’’ Shittu said.
He added that one of the goals of IACD was to partner with institutions on redirecting their programmes.
“Part of our intention is to see that we partner with institutions to see how we can reach out to their management to redirect their actions in becoming community-oriented.
“We are already working towards that,” Shittu said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the conference, which has the theme “Facilitating
Community Development through Institutional Engagements’’ has 38 participants.
The conference which started on Wednesday will end on Thursday.(NAN)
(Edited by Dada Ahmed and Olawale Alabi)