Directorate of Academic Planning

DIRECTORATE OF ACADEMIC PLANNING

The Directorate of Academic Planning was established in April, 1983 in response to the need to co-ordinate and streamline academic policy matters and/or academic activities of the University as well as monitor the growth and development of new academic programmes. It was also meant to address the problems of data collection, management and use.

Its origin therefore was informed by the need to put in place some management structures that would guide the orderly academic development of the University in the performance of its statutory functions of teaching, research and development as well as public service.

This orderly development by and large involves University’s compliance with laid down rules and regulations made by the National Universities Commission (NUC), Senate, etc.

Functions of the Academic Planning Unit

The Academic Planning Unit, among others, collects and analyses information so obtained to generate reports in the form of:

• Periodic submissions to NUC like Annual University budget and estimates, University report etc.

• Annual University budget to Council.

• Periodic statistics to bodies like Federal Ministry of Education and National Man-Power Board.

  Included in their reports mentioned above are:

• analysis of student enrolment figures;

• distribution of students according to state of origin and sex (Undergraduate & Post-graduate);

• classification of graduating students according to department and grades;

• failure rates of final nominal roll;

• classification of staff according to function;

• classification of staff according to nationality;

• classification of staff according to grade level and function; and

• computation of full-time equivalent of students.

2. Estimations of performance indicators using Full-Time Equivalents (FTE) of students.

3. Projection of students’ enrolment figures and the corresponding staff strength.

4. Performance analysis of University budget estimates to NUC and local working budget.

The functions of the Unit can be grouped into five categories, namely;

• Collection, analysis and interpretation of data from relevant university bodies;

• Provision of data-based information to the university on various university operations for use by the University as it deems fit. Some of those aspects include information on university academic/ university facilities;

• Periodic up-dating and analysis of data from relevant university bodies for the internal evaluation of the performance status of the University on all the NUC approved funding parameters and other guidelines; and

• Annual up-dating, projection, analysis and interpretation of data for the planning and preparation of the university budget and subsequent resource allocation within the ambient of the approved budget. The Bursar is responsible for financial planning and implementation of the financial matters of the University. He works closely with the Director of Academic Planning in the production and presentation of the University budget. Any other university function assigned to it and which has to do with careful collection, analysis and interpretation of data for purposes of meeting certain criteria etc. or for providing other University bodies ( such as MIS, PPU etc) with the information they would need, to be able to function efficiently and effectively.

2. Feedback Planning: The Academic Planning Unit also does the following:

• Collects relevant data on changing trends on university activity, enrolments, staff training and turnover, etc and passing such data on for institutional–based research;

• Research findings should be ploughed back to university activities for improvement purposes;

• Ensures that the university complies with and maintains standard, through passing necessary information to departments and the university at large, on NUC’s Minimum Academic Standards;

• Storage and retrieval of relevant institutional data to approved researchers, especially on academic staff workload, areas of specialization, university’s research output feedback data for generating operations of the university against approved criteria; and

• Participates in university curricula revision and/or review activities as well as ensuring that the university complies with procedures and guidelines on new programme development.

3. Process Planning: This function of the Academic Planning Unit involves:

• Use of the data collected for making projections and advising the University as appropriate;

• Participation in the production and/or revision of long, medium and/ or short term academic briefs and/or plans and modeling of such plans against reality and University goal; and

• Identifying new guidelines and criteria and modifying existing ones etc. for annual resources allocation and as the Vice-Chancellor may direct.

4. Institutional Research, Statistics and Publications: This is another function of the Academic Planning Unit and it includes:

• The collection and storage of publications of statistical nature from other universities;

• Documenting and storing information on the academic programmes of the University;

• Analysis and interpretation of University annual and trend statistics; and

• Publications of university records, statistics, and research reports as may be directed/approved by the Vice-Chancellor.

5. Secretarial Services: The Unit provides secretarial services to the following University Statutory Committees:

• Development Committee;

• University Research Grants Committee;

• Senate Academic Planning Committee;

• University Central Strategic Planning Committee;

• University Staff Housing Loans Committee

• University Senate Committee on TETFund; and

• University Accreditation Committee.