By Rotimi Ojomoyela

Ado-Ekiti — The Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) has benefitted from a new British Council–funded ‘£30,000 catalytic grant’ initiative aimed at strengthening gender equality and expanding women’s leadership in higher education across the country.

This was revealed at the opening ceremony of a 3-Day Workshop themed: “Empower: Leadership Training for Women in Higher Education”, held in Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), in collaboration with Buckinghamshire New University, United Kingdom.

Speaking with journalists in Ado-Ekiti, a professor of Health Inequalities and Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Buckinghamshire New University, Adetoro Adegoke, revealed that the UK Institution has secured a £30,000 catalytic grant, approximately N57,000,000, from the British Council to launch a nationwide project focused on developing women leaders in academia.

According to her, the project is being jointly implemented with ABUAD on a 50–50 partnership model, saying the catalytic fund is designed to spur action and lay the foundation for larger grants, including an £8million opportunity from the Wellcome Trust fund.

She noted that while the British Council fund runs for one year, the Wellcome Trust fund will span five years, offering immense potential for long-term institutional benefits, particularly for ABUAD.

Professor Adegoke stressed that ABUAD stands to gain extensively from the partnership, not only because the university is positioned as an equal project partner but also because it houses more ground-level project officers and research associates than its UK counterpart.

However, she highlighted that gender inequality in academia is not unique to Nigeria, explaining that women, particularly Black and minority ethnic women in the United Kingdom, face persistent systemic and psychological barriers, including mindset issues, limited support system and imposter syndrome.

Her words, “We have been very fortunate to have received funding support from the British Council to support gender equality but for our project, we are targeting gender equality in higher education for women in leadership because we have a lot of women who are lecturers, level academics, senior lecturers.

“The aim of the project with funds from the British Council is to support aspiring women leaders so that we can be able to reach that level of leadership and to ensure gender balance when it comes to representation at leadership level in higher education institutions.

“Participation is not limited; we’ve made it open and it’s for people that are available and passionate about that. Like you know, for anyone to be able to become or anyone who wants to become a leader, it has to come from within. The push must come from within, the passion must come from within. So the aim is not to ask people or universities maybe to nominate, but we are targeting aspiring leaders.

“With Afe Babalola University, we are in a joint partnership with them, it’s a 50-50 arrangement. So there’s nothing that we have, especially for the UK university, that is different from what ABUAD has in terms of the leadership of the project.

“It’s a catalytic fund, a catalytic fund is to spur action and then additional funding will come in. So the catalytic fund is always very small, the fund that we have from British Council is £30,000 and thereafter, the Wellcome Trust fund is targeting £8million.”

Addressing the gathering, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Smaranda Olarinde, noted that the current higher education demands visionary and compassionate leaders, urging women to rise above self-doubt, intimidation, societal expectations, systemic biases and the subtle pressures to entertain the failed system.

Meanwhile, an ultra-modern and well-equipped Information Communication Technology Centre ICT, New Horizons, has been commissioned in the University to further boost performance of students and lecturers of the university.

Speaking at the opening of the ICT centre in ABUAD, Professor Olarinde explained that the centre was equipped with 150 computer systems, saying it would allow the students to meet up with their counterparts globally.

The VC charged students of the school to make use of the opportunity to excel, create and be competitive in the modern digital World, adding that the centre belongs to every student of the university irrespective of their levels and courses.

She therefore promised that the institution would not relent in its oars to continue creating conducive environment for students and lecturers to perform optimally.