BUK is Proud of ACEPHAP’S Achievements
Bayero University Management is not surprised by the quantum of successes so far recorded by the African Centre of Excellence for Population Health and Policy (ACEPHAP), within its core mandates of research and postgraduate training, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Sagir Adamu Abbas has disclosed.
The Vice Chancellor was speaking when he received the Management team of the centre led by its Director, Professor Hadiza Galadanci on a courtesy call on Thursday 3rd September, 2020 in his office.
He said the level of successes recorded within the shortest time of the centre’s elevation through a World Bank grant into African Centre of Excellence for Population Health and Policy gladdens all members of the Bayero University family.
Professor Sagir who disclosed that he participated fully in the proposal draft writing which subsequently resulted in winning the World Bank grant, stated that he was conversant with the competence, doggedness and commitment of the centre’s pioneer Director, Professor Hadiza Galadanci, adding that ‘I am not the least surprised by the level of achievements recorded within a short period of time of the Centre’s elevation to African Centre of Excellence,’ he remarked.
He said one of the advantages of being elevated to Centre of Excellence was that several other units of the University could replicate some of the breakthrough activities achieved by the centre to the advantage of the University.
The Vice Chancellor assured the Management Team of the ACEPHAP that the University would continue to support and assist the centre in carrying out its activities.
Earlier, Director of the Centre, Professor Hadiza Galadanci had told the Vice Chancellor that she led her Management team to pay a congratulatory visit to the Vice Chancellor over his well deserved appointment and to pray for Allah to give him the wisdom to move the University to greater heights.
She told the Vice Chancellor that the centre had in 2017 participated in a competitive bidding and won a World Bank Grant to conduct cutting edge research in health disciplines and translate the research outcomes into policy as well as carry out postgraduate training for both national and regional students.
Professor Galadanci disclosed that at the moment the centre has 14 regional students from African countries such as Kenya, Cameroun, Niger, Senegal, etc, and about 40 national students. She further revealed that the Centre runs five MSc postgraduate programmes across the 7 Departments of Biochemistry, Nursing, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Community Medicine, Paediatrics and Psychiatry.
She also told the Vice Chancellor that the Centre received a lot of supports from the Association of African Universities (AAU) and National Universities Commission (NUC) to develop an e-learning programme, adding that in that direction, the Centre had 6 trainings on how to establish e-learning. She said the Centre was about developing a module on e-learning which would be useful even beyond COVID-19.
The Director added that the World Bank is collaborating with Coursera to institutionalise the e-learning activities.
She also stated that ACEPHAP in collaboration with WHO are conducting a project to evaluate the usability of the revised partograph or Labour Care Guide (LCG), adding, Maternal health care providers (nurses/ midwives and doctors) from AKTH and Muhammad Abdullahi Wase Hospital were trained as part of the evaluation project.
The Director also mentioned the $600,000 E-MOTIVE project aimed at preventing maternal deaths among the many activities carried out by the Centre, saying up till this moment the World has not released the grant to the Centre. She said most of the activities of the Centre are being carried out by a loan from the University which would be repaid after the grant is released. She appealed the new Vice Chancellor to assist the Centre in that regard.
