Prodding AAUA’s IGR drive and other wins of Professor Ige
-Debo Ikuesewo-Akinbami
Adekunle Ajasin University, Ondo State- owned academe with repeated impression of distinction, is getting a number of things correctly as it’s wont to do, even in her new season. Professor Ebenezer Olugbenga Ige, the Vice Chancellor and leader who now sits atop the management of the university is doing splendid offerings to the highly rated institution.
From readily stabilising the university’s organs and situating them for optimal performance to evident and consistent campus beautification. From giving the welfare of students a pride of place to the responsive handling of emergency situations. So much has been done in so brief a time. The distinguished professor of Botany has been atop the game in a matter that reassures a system of effective and visionary leadership.
Reading, newly, about the university’s acts of upping her purse through new actions brought good tidings. The deal brought wholesale relief and huge promise to the lustrous university, even when one considers the nation’s present fiscal fortunes, in relation to the cost of financing of higher education.
The university, since its present leadership came aboard, has initiated a list of laudable
innovations with a goal to advance its standing and enhance her financial status, part of which birthed the launching of a multipurpose agro shop, last week, where plant and animal products from the university’s Research and Development farms will be sold to willing buyers.
When it’s ready, the agro shop is expected to provide agricultural extension services to farmers. Organic plant and animal products like vegetables, palm oil, snails, chicken, beef, assorted fruits, pork, and poultry among others, would be offered for sale at competitive rates to interested members of the university and host communities.
Raising alternative income sources for the institution does not only confirm to best practices, it is also in the best interests of any university that must survive present scorching economy to look inward to stay afloat. And in seeking opportunities to increase revenue, colleges and universities around the world look at how they can grow alternative sources of revenue.
While some experts have encouraged academic institutions to focus on how they can improve educational opportunities for students before they launch too many non-educational business ventures, many universities venture into businesses to augment meagre and depleting handouts from government, by leasing of parking lots and garages, renting out campus facilities and other means, including hospitality and trading.
And that is how auspicious this deal must be. Apart from being a sales outlet for farm produce and animal products from the university farms, AAUA’s Multipurpose Agro Shop is expected to improve interface between the gown and town and help to improve the Institution’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
For many, it is a plausible the decision because it matches the mindset of a preponderance with regard to driving the university out of drought. The level of applause it has since sprouted affirms that it is apt and apposite. And since the project encourages the university community, it should also reassure her stakeholders of a worthy leadership that cares about growth, stays true to the founder’s mission and giving the university the guts it needs to grow.