Directorate of Academic Planning

Introduction

The Directorate of Academic Planning (DAP), formerly Academic Planning Unit (APU) of the Rivers State University was established in 2003 when Prof. S.C. Achinehwu was the Vice Chancellor. DAP is a unit under the Vice-Chancellor’s Office as required by the National Universities Commission (NUC). The following persons have served as Directors, Dr. Solomon A. Braide (Ag) (2003-2007), Prof. Emmanuel N. Amadi (2008-2009), Prof. (Mrs) Maureen N. Koko (2009-2015), Prof. Seth Accra-Jaja (2015 – 2016), Prof. Nnamdi S. Okoroma (2016 – 2019), Prof Precious N. Ede (2020 – date). The administration of the Unit is headed by a Deputy-Director under the Registry.

Directorate of Academic Planning

Duties

The National Universities Commission (NUC) was the first organization to establish Academic Planning Division (APD) in 1976. The following duties and responsibilities were prescribed for the division:

Assessing periodically the high level manpower requirements of the country in conjunction with appropriate government agencies;
Preparing statistical digest of university education in the universities;
Holding Annual Recurrent Estimates Hearings and analysing their financial projections and plans;
Analysing the resource utilization in the universities
Organizing and coordinating the accreditations of academic programmes in all Nigerian Universities; and,
Supplying information on higher education to government departments, institutions and researchers (Uvah 2012).

The Academic Planning Directorate of the Rivers State University is entrusted with the following responsibilities among others:

Academic interpretations of policies.
Advisory roles on academic policies.
NUC institutional and programme accreditations.
Production of Annual Statistics.
Production of University’s Annual Budget (Capital and Recurrent Expenditure (Estimates) to meet University System Annual Review Meeting (USARM)) of the NUC.
Preparation of Academic Staff data showing specialization and areas of research interests to guide University administration.
Production of reports on student data such as enrolment progression and graduation output.
Coordination of the University Ad-Hoc Committee on Lecture and Examination Monitoring.
Supervision of Post University Matriculation Examination (PUME).
Coordination of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) intervention for Academic Staff Training and Development, Conference Attendance, Research and Book/Journal Production.

Structure of the Directorate

The Director, Academic Planning carries out duties delegated to him by the Vice-Chancellor. Such duties are usually of academic nature. A large proportion of such duties derive from the University’s interaction with NUC and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

Achievements

The Academic Planning Unit has made considerable achievements since its inception.

Ensuring, and in collaboration with faculties and departments, that all academic programmes are duly accredited by the NUC and other professional bodies;
Interfacing with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to secure scholarships, conference approvals, institutional and national research project approvals for staff.
Securing Academic Book publication intervention approvals for Staff.
Securing a TETFund sponsored Academic Journal known as ‘Nigerian Journal of Oil and Gas Technology’.

Upcoming Event

The most important upcoming event for the directorate in 2022 is how to earn accreditation with NUC for about 25 academic programmes that have matured or are newly matured.

Prospects

Most of the challenges plaguing RSU’s DAP are similar to those facing the Rivers State University and Nigeria’s University system as a whole. In the critical area of accreditation of programmes for instance, the DAP has to grapple with paucity of funds, engagement of appropriate number and quality of manpower, provision of functional facilities, such as laboratories and libraries. The same can be said about academic staff training and development and research, all of which are imperatives of modern citadels of learning at the university level.

The Academic Planning of Rivers State University has lived up to expectations of the University in the areas of teaching, research and service. The Unit is, indeed, “making university education more effective and efficient in responding to the needs and goals of its students and society”. In its capacity as a “mini NUC”, it has made palpable contributions in the coordination and organization of the periodic accreditation of academic programmes in the University. The number of beneficiaries of TETFund Intervention programmes, eloquently attests to the importance of this dynamic Unit in the University.

Professor Precious N. Ede

Director, Academic Planning Unit

Professor Precious N. Ede trained as a Geographer in the University of Port Harcourt. He has been involved in academic and professional geography all his working life and was originally employed in the Institute of Geosciences and Environmental Management, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt. He is presently a research Professor in climatology, specializing in emissions modelling and air pollution. He was also a visiting lecturer in Air Pollution and Emerging Technologies at the Institute of Petroleum Studies, University of Port Harcourt. In 2017 he was appointed Chairman, Technical Committee on soot by the Rivers State Government.

Professor Ede has written several books and other academic publications on climate and environment, and he regularly presents papers in conferences in Nigeria and abroad. His passion is to model emissions from man-made and natural systems for which he has been consulted by numerous organizations, institutions and governments. Modelling emissions entails using mathematical equations to evaluate the production, dispersion, deposition and impacts of emissions from human activities.

Professor Ede was appointed the pioneer Head, Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Rivers State University in 2018; concurrently, he is the Director, Academic Planning Unit of the University, presently.

He is a member of several professional associations including:

Association of Nigerian Geographers,
Waste Management Society of Nigeria,
Nigeria Association of Hydrological Sciences
Nigeria Union of Radio and Planetary Sciences,
Nigeria Institute of Management, and
The International Society of Urban and Regional Planners, The Hague, Netherlands.

Staff Data

There are nine (9) staff in the Academic Planning Directorate, comprising: A Director, who is a professor; three administrative cadre staff, two secretarial staff, and one each of clerical, technologist and cleaner.

Name	Rank	Area Of Specialization	Email
Prof P. N. Ede	Professor/Director	Geography	precious.ede@ust.edu.com
Mrs Juliet Eguma	Administrative Officer II	Mass Comm	egumajuliet@gmail.com
Mr John Abam	Administrative Officer II	Computer Sc	Princeabam5@gmail.com
Mr Michael Oko-Jaja	Principal Exec Officer	Management	okojaja.michael3@gmail.com
Mrs Stella Ekweme	Principal Data Processing Officer II		NIL
Mr David F. Igbagiri	Principal Data Processing Officer II	Adult Edu	NIL
Mr Tekena Amakiri	Technologist II	Computer Sc	teekayamakiri@gmail.com
Mr Edward Okpo	Clerical Officer	Human Anatomy	okpogoodnewsrsust@gmail.com
Mrs Cecilia Okpara	Cleaner		NIL

TETFund Intervention Programmes Number of Beneficiaries

The Table below shows the various categories of TETFund Intervention programmes that RSUST has benefited from through the efforts of the Academic Planning Unit.

Type of Intervention	Number of Recipients	Ph. D.	M.Sc
Staff Training and Development Scheme	36	29	7
Institutional Research Project	23
Conference attendance	128
Manuscript Development	4
Total number of beneficiaries as at December 2021	191