Despite the many disruptions to the academic calendar in public universities in Nigeria, not least of which is the incessant industrial actions by the university-based unions, the Africa Centre of Excellence for Innovative and Transformation STEM Education (ACEITSE), domiciled in Lagos State University, recently graduated 11 pioneer PhD students after three years of study; a feat unachieved by any other department or centre in the state-owned university.
ACEITSE was birthed in 2019, in LASU, under the Africa Centres of Excellence for Development Impact (ACE Impact) Project, a regional World Bank-supported initiative aimed at developing the capacity of higher education institutions in Africa, to solve Africa’s challenges. ACE Impact emphasises timely achievement of results, to ensure that project development objectives (PDOs) are achieved within the project lifecycle. To ensure, therefore, that PDOs are met, the universities are required to think outside the box to adopt strategies to mitigate disruptions to their academic calendars by both internal and external factors.
Celebrating ACEITSE’s remarkable journey of knowledge, perseverance and diligence, the Centre Leader stated thatthe 11 graduating students had earned PhD in ICT Education (Artificial Intelligence), STEM Education and Entrepreneurship (Biology), ICT Education (Cyber Security), or STEM Education and Entrepreneurship (Chemistry).
To boost the visibility of ACEITSE and the university, staff and students engaged in cutting-edge research, several of which were published in high-ranking journals.These include Face-to-Face and Blended; Two Pedagogical Conditions for Testing the Efficacy of the Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA) on Learning Anxiety and Achievement in Chemistry, The Convergence of Culture, Technology, and Context: A Pathway to Reducing Mathophobia and Improving Achievement in Mathematics, and Impact of Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA) on Learning Retention: A Study on Nuclear Chemistry.
A major Disbursement-Linked Result (DLR) of the ACE Impact Project is the enrolment of regional students by the Centres of Excellence and in fulfillment of this, ACEITSE visited five higher education institutions in Sierra Leone to explore possible areas of collaboration and scout regional students for postgraduate studies.
The visits continue to yield good results with an increase in the number of regional students enrolled in ACEITSE’s programmes.Recently, the Centre took its national and international students on a tour, where they visited the Nigerian French Language Village, the National Open University of Nigeria’s (NOUN) Badagry Study Centre, the site where Atlantic Slaves had worked in sugar cane plantations, the Oba Akran of Badagry’s Palace, and the first storey building in Nigeria. The students were accompanied by Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, the Centre Leader, Professor Rasheed Sanni, and the Centre’s Communication Officer, Ms Temitope Ogunmokun.
As part of its capacity-building activities, ACEITSE organised a five-day workshop on STEM Practical and Test Construction. The workshop, which was organized in collaboration with the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN), focused on Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Data Processing and Physics and had about 221 participants. The Centre also hosted the World Bank/AAU/NUC implementation support mission team whose visit was aimed at supporting the Centre in accelerating project implementation. The team was led by the ACE Impact Task Team Lead, Dr Ekua Bentil and had other members including the National Project Coordinator, ACE Impact, Dr Joshua Atah.
The team was received by the Vice-Chancellor of Lagos State University, Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello who pledged that the university would continue to explore more avenues of revenue generation for the sustainable growth of the centre.
