On the back of Governor Godwin Obaseki’s tertiary education reforms in the state, the Edo State Polytechnic, Usen, has completed the installation of a meteorology weather station at the school premises donated by the Nigeria Meteorology Agency (NiMET), to strengthen teaching and research in environmental sciences and climate change.
The institution is also concluding plans to commence a Diploma programme in meteorology and climate change.
Rector of the institution, Prof. Abiodun Falodun, who said this in a chat with journalists, noted that the institution is pursuing an aggressive development programme that would see it compete with its peers globally.
According to him, “We have a mutually beneficial relationship with NiMET, which led to their donation of the meteorology weather station to the Polytechnic. This is part of our strategy to deepen industry-academia relations to ensure that we are at the fore-front of development in the industry. We have just installed the weather station and we hope to extend the relationship to other areas such as their participation in the running of the diploma programme in meteorology and climate change, which will soon commence.
“We are strengthening units and departments in the institution to be able to respond to the needs of the society. We have the Centre of Geospatial Information Science (CGIS) to attend to uses of geospatial science. With the weather station, we are setting a target to become a center of excellence in weather and environmental science. This is intended to ensure that our students get the best of education in this discipline and that they also get hands-on experience in these areas.”
Prof. Falodun added that the institution is pursuing other measures to attract local and international academics to provide bespoke education to students and create the right atmosphere for multidisciplinary research.
