The Vice Chancellor, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, UNIZIK, Awka, Anambra State, Prof. Charles Esimone has restated the institution’s commitment to making its Business School a business education destination.
He also expressed confidence that the school would take center stage in Nigeria as best Business School with global relevance.
Esimone spoke on Thursday at the institution during the ground breaking ceremony of the UNIZIK Business School (UBS) new building, which would house library and other aspects of business education.
He commended the school management for the giant strides recorded so far, just as he praised the benefactor, Chief Ikenna Okafor for donating the sum of N1million as take off grant for the project, praying it be completed before expiration of his tenure.
Earlier, Director, UBS, Prof. Emma Okoye who put total cost of the edifice at N695’005’631.23, described it as monstrous architectural master piece, saying it would help to further transform the campus’ landscape upon completion.
He listed reasons for constructing the facility to include, space for conducive learning, offices for principal officers and facilitators as well as increased population of students following introduction of new courses.
“The courses we introduced which interestingly were based on demand by our students have collectively made it imperative to have a more befitting structure housing the UBS.
“Similarly, UBS needed to come up at par with similar institutions following global benchmarking for business education as provided by international quality assurance and rating organizations to which UBS subscribes to its membership.
“UBS belongs to three (3) global quality assurance bodies namely, the Johannesburg based Association of African Business Schools (AABS), Brussels based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the London based Business Graduates Association (BGA).
“All of these have put us on the pedestal in the quest to be in line with global best practices of business education.
“It is important to mention here that apart from such programmes as MBA (Project Management and Engineering Management), MPA, DBA and DPA, we also have courses in MSc and PhD in different areas of academic endeavour,” he added.
The benefactor, and member of the UBS Board of Directors (BoD), Chief Okafor said neglect of business education by both teachers and students informed choice of his investment in the field.
He regretted emphasis on medicine and surgery, engineering and other fields without a corresponding business ideas, describing such notion as building a house on faulty foundation.
While pledging to partner with the school, Okafor challenged the management to tap from local content as it balanced knowledge with practice, instisting that knowledge if not shared would perish.
“I expect that the curriculum will be structured to suit our environment so the students on graduation will excel even in unfavourable environment without procedure,” he stressed.
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