Set Befitting, Flexible Agenda for CGS - VC Urges Round-Table Discussants

Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Professor Muhammad Yahuza Bello, has said that the establishment of Centre for Gender Studies was a clear manifestation of the University‟s vision to remain relevant in promoting contemporary issues of immense importance to societal development. Professor Yahuza Bello disclosed this while speaking during the Agenda Setting Round-Table Discussion that would give direction to Centre for Gender Studies on Monday, 20th June, 2016, challenging the participants to set an agenda that was flexible so that when the need to effect change arose it would be easier to make. The Vice Chancellor, who was represented by the Director, Directorate of Academic Planning, Professor Bala Sidi Aliyu, said the University had other Centres having multifaceted responsibilities like the Centre for Gender Studies, assuring also that more of such Centres were coming up.

The guest speaker and former political adviser to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Dr. Usman Muhammad Bugaje, challenged the academia to provide a befitting roadmap for the Bayero University Centre for Gender Studies in line with the current and global future challenges without neglecting the religious and cultural background. Dr. Usman Bugaje said the Centre should prepare to receive critical issues, including studies on sexuality, psycho-theories, gay, bisexual studies and many more other areas in contradiction to the culture and tradition of the environment. He said that the gender studies the Centre would undertake refers to sociological gender, which deals with culture, societal norms and values, roles and ethics, etc. adding that gender studies were eclectic and the society itself is dynamic, as such the Centre had to be on the alert.

Dr. Bugaje further urged the Centre to be thorough, creative and stick to clarity, accuracy and precision so as to distinguish between knowledge and opinion without neglecting some areas of immense importance, such as gender and leadership, gender and violence, gender and technology, gender and knowledge, etc. Director of the Centre, Professor A‟isha AbdulIsma‟il, said a module should be developed and allied to gender studies to form a course unit that would be studied by all undergraduate students. She said, the discussants selected from various disciplines and inclinations, should come up with paradigmatic change in the perception of gender.

She said that the event was the maiden one in preparation for the full take-off of the Centre, which was established in 2015. The essence of the round-table discussion, she said, was to set an effective and functional agenda that would provide a workable plan of action for the achievement of the vision, mission and objectives of the Centre that aimed to empower lives through research, training and knowledge transfer.