Port Harcourt — The transformation of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RUST) into the first information technology-driven school in the country is underway, newly appointed Acting Vice Chancellor, Professor Barineme Fakae has said.

To achieve this, he said the university is already in partnership with foremost world IT companies, established a portal that makes it mandatory for anyone transacting any business with the school will have to do so online.

The e-library project is at the seventh level and now has more than 70, 000 journals dating back to 1937. With the new development, Fakae said, the campus will have wireless internet service and it will be compulsory for every staff and student to be computer literate for them to reap the maximum benefit from the facilities.

With the e-library, the Vice Chancellor said the students and other users can have access to up-to-date books in all fields and be able to compete with their counterparts in any part of the globe.

The university has already started discussions with Zinox Computers, Intels

and Microsoft so that the school's interactive portal would be best used. A computer acquisition scheme, to make laptops available for all students and staff is underway.

On why the Mass Communication Department of the University was still

using a private studio to train students, Fakae said the institution had put every modality in place to ensure that all courses to be accredited have state-of-the-art facilities for training.

On admissions, he said RUST has been given a carrying capacity of 2, 226 by the

National Universities Commission (NUC) and would keep to the stated standards on admission. For the next academic session, the university is liaising with the joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) to electronically offer admissions. The results of those who chose the university and will be automatically pick and those qualified displayed on its sight. This, he said, would stop admission racketeering. He said that the standards being adopted places premium on merit, such that even his own brother, Mr. Sam Fakae could not be admitted into the school during the last admission exercise.