Prof. Rabia Lawal Batagarawa — Nigeria Defence Academy

Prof. Rabia Batagarawa

Hello, good evening. I'm forty-five years old and my highest qualification is a PhD in civil engineering. And my role in the university is teaching, then research.

I'm Muslim and I have twelve years experience in working in the academia, teaching various courses in civil engineering.

My motivation is to create better learning experiences for students than what we experienced during our university days, especially in areas of research methodology, which is really not connected to the built environment.

My long-term goals would be to train leaders in creating energy from organic waste and then creating innovative solutions to energy [inaudible] in the country.

For anybody joining the built environment, one of the key things you can do is to gain hands-on experience through internships and then being open to continuous learning and growth.

Built environment is regarded as a male-dominated sector, possibly because it requires practical application, going to site, and this is characterised, the sites are characterised by a lot of physical activities that requires strength, brute strength. So yes, this can be addressed at the entry level by awareness camping on all the areas of the built environment. You have the design stage, a lot of desk work can be carried out, research and development.

I'm not sure I've come across challenges and obstacles in my professional, in my place of work. My experience in the built environment has been quite good, but in terms of numbers, I've been the only female lecturer in the whole faculty for about six years, and I've had one other female join us in another department about five years ago, and then a second female just joined us in my own department last year.