The acting Vice-Chancellor of Kaduna State University (KASU), Abdullahi Ashafa, says the institution will reopen on July 13 to enable its final year students to write their examinations and graduate.

Mr Ashafa, who stated this in an interview on Friday in Kaduna, said the planned opening was to allow students looking to take advantage of the state government scholarship scheme to do so before the window closes.

He said the state government, through the Kaduna State Scholarship and Loans Board, plans to offer foreign scholarships to students with outstanding Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) to further their masters’ degree abroad.

The VC said the board had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with two African universities, where the students would be admitted.

He said that the admission processes would be closed in September and the students had not written their second semester examination because of the protracted industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

“As parents, we thought that we should fast track the resumption process so that the students can write their examinations, obtain their results, and submit to the scholarship board to process their admissions,” he said.

He said that the school management have resolved, after a meeting with critical managers of the university, to reopen on July 13, with the second semester examination scheduled to commence July 25.

He appealed to the leadership of ASUU, KASU branch, to agree with the university for the sake of the students, so that they can graduate and benefit from the available opportunity for foreign scholarships.

Mr Ashafa recalled that the previous management of the university had attempted a dialogue with the leadership of the university’s chapter of ASUU but yielded no result because of the frosty relationship.

He revealed that the current management had directed that the query issued to some executive members of the union should be withdrawn, and on behalf of the management and the university Senate, apologised to the leadership of ASUU over the incident.

When contacted, the Chairman of ASUU in the university, Peter Adamu, said he was not aware of the plan to reopen the university on July 13.

“In fact, I am just hearing this from you, and I want to make it categorically clear that we are not a party to this arrangement,” Mr Adamu said.

(NAN)