The University Registrar, Dr. ‘Bola Adekola has been appreciated by the Association of African Universities (AAU) for the educative and incisive lecture he delivered at a webinar hosted by AAU on “Challenges of Human Resources Management in African Universities During the Pandemic”. The Secretary-General of AAU, Prof. Emile Ehile lauded the Registrar for being the keynote speaker at the event where Dr. Adekola discussed extensively the challenges posed by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the management of human resources of universities across Africa.

The Registrar identified the need for universities to understand and prepare for new realities, while embracing virtual approach to the management of human resources in universities. According to Dr. Adekola, the attractions to virtual teaching and learning methods would encourage the recruitment of the best talents across Africa to handle the virtual teaching of students as faculties may no longer have to reside permanently in a given university before the job can be done. He emphasised the need to adopt flexible work arrangements and rotation among other methods of coping with the need to reduce physical contacts, while promoting the observance of safety protocols to stop the spread of the disease in African universities. 

 The moderator of the session, Prof. Nana Darkwa, a former President of AAU, admonished African universities, particularly privately-owned universities, to expedite action to move their activities online to allow their students resume schooling and stem the danger of going under due to loss of revenues. The webinar was held to launch the initiative of AAU about a job portal for African universities to assist them tackle the challenges of recruitment and job mobility across Africa. The webinar was attended by top university administrators across Africa while the new AAU job portal would soon be launched.