By Ralph Sesay (PRO, Njala University).
Njala University has over the weekend ended a three-day management and functional review retreat at the Galliness Hotel in Bo, Southern Sierra Leone.
Members of the Academic and Administrative Staff gathered in Bo to restructure programs and courses of the seven (7) schools of the University; make recommendations around personnel and infrastructure; the incorporation of the University Commercial units into the approved Njala University Enterprise and the identification of opportunities for teaching, research and extension facilities.
The three-day workshop culminated in the development of a draft restructuring proposal with very clear timelines and costs for implementation.
Professor Andrew Baimba, Acting Vice-Chancellor, and Principal while opening the retreat on Thursday 16th July 2021 told Deans of Schools and other Academic and Administrative Staff who attended the retreat that he is in a position to better understand the past and present Njala University and also participate in designing the pathway for the future of Njala University.
He noted that the three-day retreat is an in-house soul searching for the University to look at where it had done well and also identify the gaps and challenges to effectively undertake teaching, research, and extension as the key mandate of the institution.
Professor Baimba encouraged the Deans to engage in frank discussions around the critical goals of the retreat with the view to produce a blueprint that will be further scrutinized by the University restructuring committee for the attention of the Senate and the Tertiary Education Commission.
The outcome of the three-day workshop was based on a number of key recommendations around the rationalization of key programs and courses and other related matters leading to the creation of new faculties and programs, the blending of some departments within their schools into one unit for the sake of integration and better collaboration, movement of some Departments from their original schools, change the names of some Departments and schools taking into cognizance the internal restructuring that had taken place in those schools and Departments.
The three-day workshop had also made recommendations for the improvement in the infrastructure of the university, set some guidelines for personnel intake and the procedures and processes for the establishment of schools, Departments, and programs, and ways to improve teaching, research, and extension.
The restructuring process of public universities in Sierra Leone is the new direction of the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education and the Government of Sierra Leone and it seeks to consolidate and strengthen staff capacities, developing outcome-based programs and courses.
ยฉ Office of Public Relations, NU
