Monday 17 February 2020

Key achievements over the past three years (Part II)

Streamlining approval procedures of MoUs and Agreements

To address the red-taping issues related to the processing of MoUs and Agreements, while ensuring that key procedures are adhered to within the principles of good governance, the office of Planning & Resources has reviewed the procedure in consultation with the key stakeholders to streamline the processes and administrative burden to improve efficiencies at all levels.


The Information Technology Strategy Committee (ITSC)

 
The ITSC (previously Information Technology Advisory Committee) is chaired by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (P&R). The main terms of reference of the ITSC is to serve as a platform for brainstorming about strategic IT to support the educational strategy of the University and to act as an an advisory body to the University with respect to the use of ICTs to improve business processes. The work of the committee for the past three years has been to focus on the improvement of admissions and student application processes, including online payment via credit card and upload of supporting documents for international students. The ITSC also looks at different IT policies and their institutional and legal implications prior to recommending to the Council for approval (e.g. Cyber-Insurance policy and IT Business Continuity Plan). The UoM dashboard is also operational to provide real-time information to decision-makers during the marketing phases of our courses preceding each intake. 

The GTES Policy Framework 
 
The Graduate Training Employment Scheme is a project of Government through the HRDC to promote re-skilling of unemployed graduates in key sectors and to guarantee them employment in the private sector. This was a multi-impact project which would improve the employability of young unemployed graduates, promote industry-academia partnerships and generating revenue. In 2017, the University of Mauritius was lagging behind in its involvement in GTES for a lack of policy framework in place. The approval of the GTES policy framework by the Council kickstarted the University’s involvement in the GTES project. The total approved project value under GTES by the HRDC is approximately MUR 18M. A collaboration with another IT company name is already underway. Ceridian will fund the setting up of a digital innovation lab at the University. A project in AI training worth 7M has been approved in February 2020. This brings our fund-raising total on GTES projects alone, to 25M MUR over the past three years, while it was practically NIL from 2015-2017. 

Joint offer of MA Educational Leadership with University of Seychelles
This is a pioneering and innovative educational project, whereby a full-fledged fee-paying Masters programme has been mounted solely from open educational resources and offered fully online in collaboration with University of Seychelles. In the first intake, approximately 40 educators (including 25 Seychelles educators) embarked on this programme. The experience from this innovative online project will be used as steppingstone to widen the eLearning initiative of the University. 
 
Achieving Financial Resilience

The different strategies put forward by the Senior Management team with respect to budget preparation, promotion of revenue generating activities, efficient marketing to increase postgraduate and international student numbers, and improvement of efficiency at different levels has resulted in an accounting surplus in 2019 in the official accounts, as approved by Council of the University after recent struggles of the University to cope with recurring budgetary deficits.

The Technology-Enabled Learning Policy

The eLearning initiative started in 2001 at the University of Mauritius through the Virtual Centre for Innovative Learning Technologies as the pioneer of ICTs in Education in Mauritius. However, the University has struggled over the years, with respect to the direction for education technologies, and to promote the uptake of innovative technology-enabled pedagogies by academics of the institution. In 2017, the technology-enabled learning policy developed by the P&R office in consultation with CILL and Faculties was finally approved at Council. This policy is an important enabler for the success of the Learner-Centered Credit System (LCCS) initiative, led by the office of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academia). It is also an important aspect of the University’s plan to diversify revenue streams through online learning provisions over the African region.
 
Innovative Marketing Strategies

The strategic engagement with the press through regular requests for coverage of events, press releases, the use of social media such as Facebook to promote the University’s activities and interviews of different officers of the University contributed to restore a positive perception of the general public towards the institution. The University’s activities were also promoted through the different recruitment agents and video interviews of high-profile Alumni of the UoM. The University has been having recourse to professional digital marketing companies such as Keystone Academic Solutions to market our high-end dual degree courses with University of Arizona and Paris-Seine. Emphasis has been laid both on the local and international markets with respect to brand promotion and upholding of the University’s image and reputation as the premier National University of Mauritius. The impact of our actions has been clearly demonstrated by the gradual rise in the number of international student applications and increasing number of requests from different European institutions to participate in Erasmus+ programmes with them.

Key achievements over the past three years (Part 1)

Three years are nearly over. Roughly two months remain before my present term as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning & Resources) comes to an end. From that point, there are two possible routes - a renewal for another final term of three years, or I get back to my position as Associate Professor at the Centre for Innovative and Lifelong Learning (CILL). Either way, I am quite happy to take up the challenge again or to work to become a Professor, the ultimate target of any academic career. Some of the key achievements of my office during the past three years are highlighted below:


Pre-2017. The University was undergoing a difficult phase and the image of the University had been compromised because of bad press. The Strategic Plan 2015-2020 was approved, but key policies to foster the development of the strategic directions were not in place. The Finances of the University were always in the red, and this has resulted in unwanted negative publicity for the institution. There was practically no marketing strategy, except the classic press adverts, and sporadic uses of social media. Fund-raising was at its lowest point and the office of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning & Resources) was often wrongly perceived on this aspect. Staff morale overall was low and the yearly training vote for non-academic staff was not used to the maximum, while the academic community was exasperated at the lack of research funding available and the suspension of the conference attendance scheme for approximately two years. Red taping at the institutional level was so high that the University was inefficient in multiple dimensions, for instance, from the approval of Memorandum of Understanding to the signature of simple GTES agreements. Postgraduate student numbers were on the steep decline while fees charged kept increasing, without a proper horizon scanning of the environment surrounding us and the strategies that were being adopted by other TEIs.

Flexible and Competitive Fee Structure


During the academic years preceding the 2017/2018 intake, the fee structure of the UoM postgraduate programs was on the high side and kept increasing every year, to compensate for the University’s policy to maintain undergraduate general fees constantly. This policy of increasing postgraduate fees was a detriment to the overall student intake at postgraduate levels, while the policy was to actually focus on more postgraduate programmes. As from the academic year 2017/2018, the University authorities successfully managed to review the General Fees upwards. This provided an opportunity for the office of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning & Resources) to revise the postgraduate fee structures for local and international students, and the undergraduate fee structures for international students.


The International Affairs Office and the International Strategy

On its meeting of 31st August 2017, Council approved the Strategy and the setting up of an International Affairs Office (IAO) at the University of Mauritius to drive and implement actions and initiatives to enhance the global visibility of the UoM. The International Affairs Office is actually operating under the P&R office, with only one Administrative Manager and one Administrative Officer. Since the setting of the International Affairs office, a number of key indicators have been on the rise namely the number of Erasmus+ Exchange Agreements and staff exchanges, the number of international students, and the hosting of visitors and delegations. In the context of the Internationalization of the University, and as outcomes of the different participation of the Pro VC P&R office in international student recruitment fairs, the University has approved the policy principle to work with recruitment agents to increase the international student population of the University. 


University Net Revenue from Consultancies (UDF)


Consultancy activities constitute an important aspect of the University’s activities that generate additional revenue for the University and for the academic and support staff. The opportunity to engage in Consultancies results in benefits that are multifold for the staff community. The first benefit is that it can improve job satisfaction and leads to improved engagement and commitment to one’s job, increased revenue for the staff, better staff retention and contributes to the reputation of the University on the professional market. The focus on improved services to the academic and non-academic staff community has led to an increase in the overall consultancy contracts value over the past years. As a consequence, there has been a steady increase in the revenue for the UoM that contributes towards the University Development Fund (UDF).  




Setting-up of the Office of Marketing and Externally Funded Activities

This was a recommendation of the visitor’s report. The setting up of the office has been approved by the Council. Since 2017, the University has been engaging itself in innovative and more impactful ways of marketing its various activities and services. The re-establishment of the “Consultancy Watch” helped the unit in identifying key opportunities for project bidding. The Consultancy activities of the University has experienced a consequent increase in total project value since 2017. Consultancy enhances the reputation of the University and brings funds to the University Development Fund, which has been used for key development projects of the University.

The polemic surrounding University Ranking of UniRank (4icu.org) : The case of UoM being 85th in the African Top 100

This is an interview I gave to the News on Sunday paper that appeared on 26th July 2020. 1. There is a controversy about the ranking of ...