NU’s School of Postgraduate Studies Concludes One-Day Capacity Building Workshop for Supervisors of HDR’s

News / 11 June 2021 / 0 Comments

By: Alhaji Umaru Gbow

Njala University, 11th June 2021- Njala University’s School of Postgraduate Studies has on Thursday 10th June 2021 concluded a successful One-day Capacity Building Workshop for Supervisors of Higher Degree Research Programs at the Njala University Auditorium, Njala Campus Mokonde.

The workshop attracted hundreds of academics from Njala University, sister institutions, and MPhil and Ph.D. Candidates and Senior Administrators of the University.

Dean School of Postgraduate Studies, Professor Abdul Rahman Sesay while giving the overview of the workshop recounted that the decision to hold such a workshop was informed by a resolution from the last Postgraduate School Board Meeting and the continuous desire for reforms by the Tertiary Education Commission.

Professor Sesay disclosed that the Postgraduate Programs at Njala University are confronted with a number of challenges such as the relationship between students and supervisors, unclear policies, resources, staffing gaps, untimely completion of HDR’s, lack of supervisory training, etc.

The workshop, he went on, would engage and empower potential and current supervisors with a view to adopting positive supervisory strategies and also effectively meet the New Direction’s quality agenda driving improvement of practice.

Dr. Muneer Jalloh, Registrar Njala University while welcoming the participants spoke strongly of the new resolve by the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education and the Tertiary Education Commission to improve standards in all higher educational institutions and also undertake comprehensive reforms across the strata of all public institutions.

He commended the School of Postgraduate Studies for already taking the lead towards this Direction and encouraged Deans and other Academic staff to engage widely and undertake the necessary reforms.

Dr. Jalloh assured the meeting that Administration had consented to committee huge resources to the provision of laboratory and teaching facilities to accompany these reforms.

The facilitators of the One-day workshop had included imminent and experienced professors in research and teaching spanning over two decades and more and these had included the Deputy Vice-Chancellors of Bo and Njala Campuses, Professors Bashiru Mohamed Koroma and Mohamed Syed Fofanah, Professors M.T.Lahai, Mrs. Adyln Johnson, Aiah Randolph Lebbie, Alieu Mohamed Bah, and Olapade Olufemi Julius.

The Head of Human Resources Njala University, Mr. Paul Ngaujah successfully anchored the program.

They had made presentations on the Njala University/TEC Supervision Policy Guidelines; Fundamentals of Higher Degree Academic and Research Supervision; Expectations, Roles and Responsibilities of the Supervisor and the Student; Dealing with Supervisor and Student Challenges; Academic/Research Integrity; Academic/Research Misconduct; Assessing Postgraduate Research and the Utilization of E-Resources(ICT) to Support Higher Degree Research.

The One-day workshop was climaxed by a plenary session moderated by the Director of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, Dr. Adolphous Johnson

MPhil and Ph.D. students and others members of the Academic and Administrative Staff during the plenary session raised issues around the identification of predatory journals, staffing gaps versus workloads in the respective schools, student/supervisor relationship improvement, and several other pertinent issues.

The follow-up to this workshop would lead to a comprehensive review of the programs and structure of the postgraduate programs and also the development of a blueprint.

Njala University has witnessed a huge growth in the enrollment into the programs of the Postgraduate schools and all the seven schools of the University are now doing various Postgraduate programs in tandem with emerging 21st-century issues.

It is against this backdrop that the School and the Administration are continuously working towards improving the quality of these programs.

Quite recently the School has held mini-workshops to assess the readiness of the school to meet the recent Tertiary Education Commission requirement to introduce Taught Course into the curriculum of the University for an eventual rollout this 2020/2021 Academic year.

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