PRESS BRIEFING BY PROF OKOYE, DIRECTOR, UNIZIK BUSINESS SCHOOL, ON WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8, 2023

Theme; Town and Gown : UBS and National Development Using Global Benchmarking

Gentlemen of the Press
I bring you all warm greetings from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Charles Esimone FAS, who serves as Chairman of Board of Directors of UNIZIK Business School (UBS). This briefing has become imperative owing to new developments which we believe will add value to the operations of UBS and more importantly to draw attention of the public to our activities especially, our new programmes.

You may have noticed the ongoing remodelling of this building that houses UBS, it is part of the entire process of giving a face lift to the building while we await the commencement of the new UBS state of the art architectural masterpiece which will soon commence, the idea is to have more robust executive classrooms, syndicate rooms, seminar rooms including conference rooms and main halls.

The structure and its appurtenances will make UBS comparable to other Business Schools in the world. The new UBS building will have attached to it, a hundred (100) bed hotel to be managed by either Hilton, Le’Meridien or Sheraton. The piece of land beside UBS has already been approved by the University for that purpose.
Apart from physical infrastructure, we have started improving our trade in the area of our primary mandate namely; improving and developing human infrastructure. In November 2021, our ebullient, dynamic, indefatigable Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Esimone who is very passionate about the growth and progress of UBS approved the introduction of new courses at MSc and PhD levels in line with current industry trends as it pertains to Business education.

We believe that with the commencement of the new programmes, UBS will double in student size and would have made us set sail as the flagship of Business Schools in Nigeria, and well-positioned us to compete in the global marketplace, bearing in mind, the Project 200 of Nnamdi Azikiwe University.
Among the new programmes which were rigorously defended at the curriculum committee of the College of Postgraduate Studies are:
PhD Accountancy
PhD Applied Economics
PhD Banking and Finance (option in Banking or Finance)
PhD Business Administration and Management
PhD Communication Management
PhD Cooperative Economics and Management
PhD Entrepreneurship and Innovation
PhD Forensic Accounting
PhD Governance and Legislative Studies
PhD Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management
PhD Marketing
PhD Public Administration
PhD Risk Management
PhD Security Studies and Conflict Resolution
MSc Accountancy
MSc Banking and Finance (option in Banking or Finance)
MSc Business Administration and Management
MSc Communication Management
MSc Cooperative Economics and Management
MSc Entrepreneurship and Innovation
MSc Forensic Accounting
MSc Governance and Legislative Studies
MSc Marketing
MSc Public Administration
MSc Risk Management
MSc Security Studies and Conflict Resolution
Closely related to the above is the affiliation of UBS with the Johannesburg-based Association of the African Business Schools (AABS), Brussels based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the London-based Business Graduates Association (BGA) all of which provide accreditation as well as global benchmarking for quality assurance, improvement and accreditation for business schools. Our membership of BGA has given rise to our participants to become student members of the organization and they have presented certification both during their studies and after their graduation, thus admitting them as alumni of this global business education quality assurance agency. Other top-rated business educators such as Harvard Business School also receive accreditation from AACSB.
In a bid to deliver on world-class learning experience for short-term certificate programmes, we have entered into collaboration with the Centre for Regional and International Development (CRID) based in both Canada and the United Kingdom in April of 2022 while in August 2022, we forged a collaboration with the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ONICCIMA) for a certificate programme in seven (7) different areas of;

Family and Owner Business Management (FOB)
Cooperative and Agri-Business Management (CAB)
Business Leadership Management (BLM)
Business Language and Management (BLM)- Mandarin or French options
Security Studies and Conflict Resolution Management (SCR)
Hospitality Management (HM)
International Business Management (IBM)
The most profound is the business language with options in either of Mandarin (Chinese language) or French. This programme is gradually picking up. It is worthy of mention that in addition to being incorporated by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), UBS joined and has become a corporate member of the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce.

Gentlemen of the Press, towards the end of last year, we entered into yet another collaboration with AfriHUB to forge partnership with foreign Universities in Europe (France, Switzerland and United Kingdom) for both undergraduate courses and postgraduate programmes. The selling point of the BSc programme is the fact that they are of 3 years duration with the 3rd and final year being on-campus in Europe or Nigeria depending on the choice of the candidate, in addition, the programme is conducted 80% online and 20% physical interface. The same holds true of the MSc and MBA programmes. It is important to mention that the BSc graduates are eligible for National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Scheme. This progamme is presently gathering momentum.

We are presently developing an aspect of our website that will be dedicated as Learning Management System (LMS), this will facilitate teaching and learning for remote participants from any part of the world, this will help boost our interphase with our students participating from United States and United Kingdom. This is in addition to payment of fees, result checker and hosting our new online journal known as the UBS Journal of Business and Economic Policy whose editorial board has since been inaugurated.

Permit me at this juncture, to inform you that we provide business solutions using the instrumentalities of our cutting-edge consultancy service better known as UBS Consult. We have diverse clientele ranging from the academia, through industry that cut across brewing, upstream and downstream petroleum sector, financial services, in plant and off plant training among others. We have a robust faculty that provide tailor-made solutions to every known industry issue.

Gentlemen of the press, UNIZIK Business School (UBS) achieved yet another milestone in December of 2022 when we won a grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering for the Higher Education Partnership in Sub-Saharan Africa (HEP SSA) programme. It may interest you to know that this programme is supported by the Anglo-American Group Foundation and the Government of United Kingdom. The pilot scheme of this programme has been successfully tested under the Enriching Engineering Education Programme (EEEP) in 2016. This grant aims to address the engineering skills deficit in Africa, south of the Sahara as well as show case the role of engineering in driving inclusive economic development in the region. By forming and strengthening synergy between academia and industry, the programme aims to enable the higher education system in sub-Saharan Africa to produce engineers with requisite skills and knowledge that are required to meet the needs of industry and to tackle local challenges.

Why engineering in the Business School, one may ask. It is important to mention here that among our programme offerings here in UBS includes MBA (Project Management), MBA (Engineering Management), DBA (Engineering Management) as well as DBA (Project Management). you may like to know that this programme is implemented through a model known as ‘hub and spoke’. The hub universities are funded to lead the project, facilitating bilateral secondments with local industry partners, and coordinating knowledge sharing workshops, reports, curriculum review and research projects with a large number of spoke universities, as well as with industry and UK partners.

We are making more effort of attracting more grants from United Nations agencies, world acclaimed Foundations, Donor and Grant agencies including TETFund.

We invite you to become our participants as we offer courses in Communication Management at both MSc and PhD levels. We believe that you in the media have the capacity to promote what we do in UBS as the contributions of the 4th estate of the realm cannot be under estimated. We are very passionate about quality and that is how we have continually provided value-added service to our students.

We thank you very much for coming to this briefing and believe that we have sufficiently provided more insight and perspectives into the activities of UNIZIK Business School which for all intents and purposes has positioned itself as industry leader. That is why we keep transforming businesses and inspiring leaders.
God bless UBS and thank you indeed for your kind attention.