US AMBASSADOR TOURS CHANCELLOR COLLEGE

In his welcoming remarks, the Vice Principal, Dr Samson Sajidu, explained to the Ambassador that the College still enjoys the status of being the largest high education institution in the country, even when compared to the newly established public and private universities. Chancellor College offers a diverse range of programmes in law, humanities, education, natural sciences and social sciences. The College makes deliberate efforts to enroll students on 50:50 (female: male) basis and it also enrolls students with special needs. He further explained that the College is not operating at its maximum potential for socio-economic development of the nation due to lack of resources. Reference was made to the College’s land, of which only a quarter is developed. If all the land was developed with the vision of expanding teaching and learning facilities (such as classrooms, seminar rooms, laboratories), students accommodation, sports facilities, recreation spaces and many more as outlined in it draft master plan, the College would be enrolling not less than 20,000 face-to-face students. He went on to mention that the College currently has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Public Affairs Section of the US Embassy on hosting of the American Corner which is benefiting students, staff and external users not only as a source of information about the USA but also a source of literature on other issues such as politics, law, business and economics. However, having retiled the library floor, the College does not have resources to put up a proper wall to dmearcate the American Corner.

At the end of the tour, the Ambassador explained that she was generally impressed with the College regarding the great contributions it makes to the development of the nation. She explained that although the current support structures from her Government may not necessary be on ‘bricks and mortar’ there are several other opportunities that the College may be exploring in the USA on capacity building such as collaboration with American Universities on both students and staff exchange, the Fulbright Programme and many more. Although the College is already benefiting from such programmes she mentioned that her office will be glad to assist in enhancing such initiatives with the American institutions. She mentioned that although the concept of American Corners is not currently sufficiently supported as it used to be, she was glad to learn that it is proving to be extremely useful to users within and outside the College. She therefore pledged to make an effort to find ways of putting up a proper wall in the College library.