New UB Registrar Unveils Mouth-watering Vision, Road Map

NDIMUH B. SHANCHO

Barely few days after his installation as the new Registrar of the University of Buea (UB), Associate Professor, Ernest Molua, has made known his vision for the University and implementation strategies in an interview granted The SUN, September 13, 2019. 

Taking over an office hitherto occupied by academic luminaries  like late Dr Herbert Ngancho Endeley, Chief Professor Samson Abangma and Professor Ndip Roland, the Registrar, who saw his appointment as a summon by the Head of State to serve the UB community promised to place visibility at the top of his agenda for UB.

“My first agenda is to give UB visibility. So much has been achieved in this university but the world does not know that. A lot of emphases shall be laid on external communication to make sure that beyond the fines of Molyko, the sounds and echoes of UB are heard far and wide; throughout the national territory, into the Central Africa Sub Region, and the world at large,” he said.

As far as internal communication is concerned, Professor Molua promised to be very responsive to the needs of the students. “The University is growing; students, faculties and departments have a lot of challenges with respect to managing the records of the growing number of students. My doors shall remain opened and the needs of the students shall be promptly and timely addressed. Communication shall be smooth in such a way that no student will cry on this campus for not having access to vital records either to pursue further studies or write and entrance exams within the country,” the new Registrar stated.

Besides visibility, Professor Molua promised to enhance the “internationalization” of UB in a way that foreign students will be attracted to come into the University and trained to serve other governments within the Central Africa Sub-region.  Drawing inspiration from the quality of training offered by the different faculties and colleges of the University, he said “our programmes are to be tailored in such a way that we are able to build on our internationalization agenda to attract foreign students, who will study hear and return to their home country and serve their government well and people of those countries will be asking where did this man get trained? And they will realise it was in UB. This will serve as a positive feedback mechanism in which more people in those countries will be attracted and UB will also make its name”.

Improving international rankings.

The new Registrar attributed the poor standing of UB on international rankings  to limited publicity. “Our teachers are doing a lot of research which does not gain prominence because of the way we have communicated over the years. We have treated UB as a government establishment and seem shy to communicate to the outside world. The private universities are making so much noise and making so much advertisement and communication more than state universities. We have to grow beyond that,” he indicated, promising to explore different forms of communication and all type of media so that UB is “omnipresent” in offices, cars, house of the people in Cameroon, Central Africa, Africa and the world. “We will roll out our communication plan in the next few months,” the UB Registrar disclosed.

 O-Level English as admission requirement waived

Regarding the Ordinary Level English undergraduate admission requirement that has hitherto forced many to resort to other universities in the country, Professor Molua said it has been waived since the coming of Professor. Ngomo Manga Horace, UB Vice Chancellor. “Anglophones who did not succeed in Ordinary Level English can be admitted into UB. They will only have to present an English Language proficiency certificate offered by UB or other centres here in the country like IELTS”.

More stringent measures against “sexually transmissible marks”

With respect to the trading of sexually transmissible marks within the University, the new UB Registrar promised to increase vigilance and quality assurance with respect to quality of teaching, examinations, grading, participation of students during lectures. “We will try our maximum best to ensure that candidates are admitted into their first choices so that a student is not pushed to a second choice where they are not competent, so some of them, especially the female students, don’t find themselves into heavily quantitative departments and techniques like mathematics-based courses. When they get to these departments and are not able to meet with the requirements, they are prone to this kind of temptation where they keep failing and failing and resort to visiting a lecturer at his office, and find themselves into a waiting uncompromising situation because man by nature is inherently evil,” he disclosed.

Curbing wanton keeping of students beyond training duration

Quizzed on the wanton keeping of students by lecturers beyond stipulated training during, the new administrator hinted “if someone is offering PhD and has been in the programme for more than 5yrs, the law requires that the candidate’s study be terminated if the head of dep’t through faculty board to the senate submit that this student has not been able to finish within five year accompanied with a report explaining why; if the student was recalcitrant or if it has been because of the supervisors”.

The Registrar said he will follow up to ensure that the frustrations of teachers and students are timely addressed. He attributed the extension of studies beyond stipulated timeline to limited human resources.  “Colleagues have been overburdened with supervision beaus we are few. That is why the Head of State in his magnanimity offered to recruit 2000 PhDs. By early October, I am sure the list will be published and UB will be receiving about 132 new PhDs,” Professor Molua divulged.

The coming of the new lecturers, according to him, will alleviate the workload and stress of the current teachers, as they help with supervising undergraduate and some masters.

Vision realization strategies

To realise his vision and plans for UB, Professor Molua “the first thing is to energise the men and women who work with you at the registry to understand that this is a new dawn and a new momentum, and therefore, we all need to rise up from sleep and start doing what we have not been doing and what we ought to be doing in a new style”.

The new Registrar promised to step up follow up to make sure the financial resources are there to compensate teachers for the work they do so they can be motivated to deliver their services better. “We need to lobby and I shall do that on behalf of the university with the supervision of the VC for more infrastructure, space, laboratories, consolidate lands and that more public investment projects are sent to UB,” he added.

Respect for academic calendar amidst Anglophone crisis

The Registrar promised to follow the academic calendar strictly, irrespective of the Anglophone crisis. “We have gone through a lot of challenges, lectures threatened, students raped, kidnapped etc but we have held firm and shall not allow any group of persons who want to drag us into what we see in neighbouring countries where teachers staff union will go on strike for 9 months and hold the university hostage. We have been able to fight that in UB and it’s not in my tenure that UB shall face perturbation,” he surmised.

Professor Molua disclosed that the next academic year will start by mid-October as planned with 12 weeks of teaching in the first semester followed by examinations. He also promised to ensure postgraduate admission list is published a few days after publication of undergraduate admission list so that both graduate and undergraduates studies can move on simultaneously.

Messages to Students & Teacher

I am coming with new momentum and dynamism, the new Registrar termed his mandate “an era of bigger things, new vision, and interesting strategies”.  He promised to pay attention to staff and students’ challenges for transmission to the VC and senior management. “I am their servant and will be very responsive to their needs and transmit them to necessary quarters. In me the students shall find a father, mentor, teacher and an administrator; the teaching staff shall find in me, a brother, friend, colleague and for the junior teachers, a mentor,” he promised.

Professor Molua Was born in Buea.  He studied at Saint Joseph College, Sasse. He was selected by the Cameroon Government in 1990 to study agriculture on scholarship in Nigeria where he got a Bachelor Degree and Masters before Proceeding to Royal Veterinary and Agriculture University in Denmark for a second Masters still in Agriculture and Environmental Management. From Denmark, he went to Germany where he obtained a PhD before returning to Cameroon and University of Buea in 2003 where he has been serving in different capacity until his recent appointment as registrar.