International Science Conference: FUOYE partners with South Africa’s Vaal University of Technology on research

Priscilla  Ofunre, Ado-Ekiti

To boost research, the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, FUOYE’s Faculty of Sciences and South Africa’s Vaal University of Technology (VUT) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and begun exchange of academic programmes and capacity building among members of staff and students of both universities. 

The development, which was part of the conclusion of the 2019 FUOYE’s  International Science Conference, which lasted two days, had the theme: “Innovation and Advancement in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology”, organised by the Faculty of Sciences under the leadership of the Dean, Prof. Olayide Lawal, a professor of Industrial and Macromolecular Chemistry.

Prof. Elizer Bobby Naidoo of Vaal University and Dr. Adekunle Adeyemi of FUOYE, Department of Mechatronics, delivered lead papers.

Naidoo, in his lecture entitled, “Nanoscience: Application and Techniques”, condemned industrial activities that have resulted in a continuous shrinking of clean water, adding that, it is a signal of gradual destruction of the human race, if not checked. He, therefore, suggested the application of nanoscience as panacea to the environmental challenge.

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Adeyemi, whose lecture was “Advancement in Technology in the New Millennium: Mechatronics’ stand at a glance,” talked more on the achievements of mechatronics and particularly the various research breakthroughs in the field that have fetched garlands for FUOYE in national and international academic competitions.

Speaking about the development and the vision of the institution about it, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kayode Shoremekun, promised to extend the collaboration with the MoU to other faculties and programmes to ensure widespread enhancement of human capacity among the staff and students of the institution.

The vice chancellor, who was represented by both Professors Rasaki Ojo Bakare, Dean of Post Graduate Studies at the conference and Prof. Babatope Alabadan, Dean of Faculty of Engineering at the signing of the MoU, said: “the signing of the MoU is an eye opener and our university is going bigger and wider. Collaborating with a bigger university in South Africa is a welcome development. It will not only be useful in Faculty of Sciences, but will affect the whole university. It will soon be expanded to cover all other programmes in the university.”

Speaking about his impression on the Nigerian environment and the opportunities provided by the signing of the MoU, Prof. Naidoo said: “The FUOYE environment looks nice with a lot of green around you. What I have observed is that you have problems with energy because I see that your power goes off very often. But I know that you have a huge natural vegetation here, which can be harnessed to produce alternative energy and water preservation.

“The MoU will enable us to be exchanging both staff and students in research works in academic programmes such as Water Treatment, Alternative Energy, Biotechnology, and for FUOYE staff to obtain higher qualifications from VUT. That is the resource that we have in our university which FUOYE does not have. Also, we will also learn from our cultures.

“There will be widespread of knowledge that FUOYE will be getting from our university using the facilities that we have, which FUOYE doesn’t have. The way we teach and the way FUOYE teaches we will learn from each other and this will support the idea of broadening our spectrum within ourselves as Africans rather than going abroad for such,” he said.

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Professor Lawal also spoke about the gains of the MoU, saying, “The major objective of this collaboration is to extend our research tentacles to other universities, this time, with Vaal University of Technology, because it is a university that has very a strong reputation in terms of research. We are targeting opportunities for exchange of students and staff and making our students to go there for research works.

“We are of the opinion that once this happens, there will be transfer of knowledge for enchanced productivity.  It is going to be a win-win situation. The benefit will be to enhance human capacity in the sense that we know that here the learning facilities are not so available for research but over there they have huge faciliies for research. Where we are deficient, we can send our samples for analysis or go over there to do the analysis. We are also trying to see the opportunity of publishing together if the research involves both universities.

“That we should support sharing knowledge within Africa is a very good position and the advantage is that there are certain problems that are peculiar to Africa and which may not be within the knowledge of the western world, but because we are co-African countries, we understand ourselves. Also, it will be easier to apply for visa to travel to South Africa than traveling to Europe or other western countries.

“There is an aspect of research that is very crucial. It is the dissemination of research findings. If such findings are not properly disseminated, it adds no value to the society. So, we organise conferences to showcase these findings and share them with other scholars from other universities in order to establish a synergy to facilitate further research. It is a kind of human capacity enhancement. It provides the opportunity for younger ones to see how the senior academics present their papers. We also are using this forum to showcase a lot of research breakthroughs that are happening in FUOYE, particularly, in the Faculty of Sciences. Our university is a fast growing one and we have a lot to promote this university.”