By: Felix Ikpotor
The management of Rivers State University (RSU) says it has started moving the university to a smart campus status where everything is digitized.
The management said the move is inline with the vision of the founding fathers, adding that to achieve the new status would require every department of the school fully having access to internet facility.
Vice Chancellor of the school, Professor Isaac Zep-Obipi, who disclosed this during a media briefing to herald activities for the combined 37th and 38th convocation ceremony of the school, said the administrative building and some parts of the school are already benefitting from the initiative.
He said the initiative is being carried out in partnership with its partners Cinfores.
Zep-Obipi said the target is to ensure that every part of the university including its satellite campuses have access to broadband internet.
”We have started moving our university to a smart one where everything will be digitised. Critical to this will be access to internet facilities, which we have started work on, with the administrative building being the first beneficiary as we roll out across the rest of the University in the coming year.
”With support from our Information and Communication Technology partner, Cinfores, a part of our ICT Centre has been remodelled for use as a Creative Academy, a tech and innovation hub, equipped with tech facilities with various levels of competence development. We are at an advance stage of deploying a workflow management process, FiriX, ” he said.
To sustain the above, the vice chancellor added: “We have set prospects and targets. We look to ensure that every part of the University main and satellite campuses has access to broadband internet. We aim to build more smart Classrooms across faculties to drive learning in this age”.
The VC announced that a total of 13,242 students shall be graduating shall be graduating in the combined convocation fixed for 5th and 6th December, 2025. He gave a breakdown of the graduands to include 10,648 undergraduates, 1,356 for Masters Degree, 700 postgraduate diplomas and 538 Doctors of Philosophy.
He listed some of his achievements in the school to include creation of new Directorate of Staff Development and Procurement and Corporate Affairs, adding that with support from Tertiary Education Technology Fund (TETFund), the management has completed two abandoned and upgraded laboratories in the faculty of sciences.
Zep-Obipi used the medium to clarify on the status’ of its three satellite campuses in Emohua, Ahoada and Etche. He said the management resolve to bring some students from the three newly created campuses back to the main campus because of paucity of funds, increasing insecurity on the campuses, inadequate facilities for staff and students amongst other challenges.
”Apart from being a drain on our limited resources, no single additional facility has been provided since when they were commissioned in 2022.
” We started with 100 level students and moved to higher levels over the past three years. With constant increase in the population of staff and students on these campuses, the challenges of inadequate classrooms, offices, staff and student accommodation, lack of laboratories and libraries, and other essential infrastructure and facilities have become overwhelming. To partly address some of these challenges, the university resolved to have the years 3 and 4 students of the Faculty of Agriculture and year 1 students of the other two faculties on the main campus,” he explained.
Zep-Obipi added that while the host communities of Ahoada and Etche have been very supportive, some elements in Emohua have been constantly attacking, harassing, and robbing students on the campus.
