The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Governing Council of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Professor Siyan Oyeweso, has underscored the need for the governing council and management of tertiary institutions to be work harmoniously for the progress of their institutions.

Speaking at the ongoing retreat for council and an enlarged management team of the OAU, Oyeweso stated that the Governing Council-Management Retreat was designed to make both actors strategic change agents for transforming OAU into a globally-competitive, digitally advanced, and socially responsive institution that meets both national and global needs in the 21st century.

The theme of the three-day retreat is ‘Towards a Better Working Relationship between Council and Management’. Oyeweso added that the goal is to build strategic partners in the management, staff and all other organs of the university so that they can work together.

“We want to encourage dialogue, understanding and extend hands of fellowship to the management. And to know the clear demarcation of the powers of the Governing Council, Senate, management and the committee system of the university because if this is clearly understood, there will not be any clash of functions. We are living witnesses to a number of universities where there is unstable council-management relationship, which has led to the sack of the vice chancellors and the entire management or the entire council,” he said.

In his keynote speech, former vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Abel Idowu Olayinka, who spoke on ‘Exemplary Practices of a Good Governing Council and a Good Vice Chancellor’, urged everyone to stick to the rules, especially as they are clear.

On his part, the Vice Chancellor of OAU, Professor Adebayo Simeon Bamire, expressed optimistimism that the retreat will result in a better working relationship for the varied units within the university.