First City Monument Bank (FCMB), a part of the FCMB Group Plc, has equipped the newly built E-Classroom of the Institute of Child Health (ICH) of the College of Medicine in Ibadan with e-teaching and e-learning facilities for the research and study of children related diseases.

In this interview, a professor of genetics and public health, Olukemi Amodu, who is the Director of the Institute, spoke on the project and its importance to the university, students, and Nigeria’s health sector.

https://techeconomy.ng/2021/12/fcmb-made-education-without-borders-possible-at-ich-professor-amodu/

Wey the project she talk. Half baked journalism

Professor of Journalism.

What is the simple thing every Nigerian should know about the ICH?

ICH was founded in 1960 to research child health care for the benefit of the Nigerian child. In recent years, we cover more than children-related diseases. So, we have expanded our research into diseases that manifest among adults and research on genetics and social behavioural health studies.

Tell us more about the focus areas of ICH. Why is the Institute so important?

The Institute of Child Health has three focus areas namely research, training, and services. In the area of research, we study child and adolescent health, genetics, social and behavioural health. With regards to training, ICH has several post-graduate programmes that include master programmes in public health, PhD in child and adolescent health, and public health biotechnology.

Our programmes are unique because we are the only institution that graduates students in MPH Child and Adolescent Health and M.Sc. Public Health Biotechnology. We are the first in Nigeria and Africa. The ICH also do community services through its immunisation clinics.

What necessitated the E-classroom for the ICH community in UI?

Interestingly, the e-classroom is very relevant now because of COVID-19. When we envisioned it in 2019, there was no pandemic. We wanted an e-classroom to take full advantage of our collaborations outside Nigeria.

After resuming as Director in 2019, I asked myself how we can make the most of our international collaborations? How can we get our international resource persons to help teach? Their interaction makes a difference in the performance of our graduates making it important for us to bring them closer to us. This birthed the idea of an e-classroom that will make our international collaborators an integral part of our faculty at the Institute.

What is it about the Institute that inspired FCMB to fund the provision of facilities in your e-classroom?

FCMB is a bank of the people. We can see what the bank has done in our local communities and across the country. So, we thought that they could help us out because the FCMB Group Plc, led by the Group Chief Executive, Mr Ladi Balogun, has proven to be a purpose beyond profit business that is committed to solving social problems at scale. With that in mind, we approached First City Monument Bank and got such a great response. It is exciting that FCMB is on this journey with us to bring borderless education closer to students.


How will the E-classroom enrich lives in our community?

This is already happening because we have started using the e-classroom with students really benefiting from it. It has also been beneficial to members of the faculty of the institute working on research that is beneficial to the community.

Often, our research is turned into papers that benefit only the academic community, but we can now have webinars that will teach people and share what we do here at the clinic. This will bring critical knowledge such as how to take care of babies closer to the populace. This benefits students, our faculty, and the general populace.

https://techeconomy.ng/2021/12/fcmb-made-education-without-borders-possible-at-ich-professor-amodu/