Not less than 150 undergraduate academic programmes in Nigeria’s public and private universities are unaccredited, WE can authoritatively report today.
According to the 2016 accreditation status report by the National Universities Commission (NUC), exclusively obtained by this newspaper, the unaccredited courses are domiciled in 37 of 143 universities in the country.
The Quality Assurance Department of the NUC is in charge of accrediting courses in the universities.
For a course to be accredited, the NUC says, it must meet the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) that has been drawn up by the commission.
Such a course, officials say, must have qualified faculty members, good learning environment and adequate teaching materials – equipment, books and journals.
Courses with full accreditation are due for re-accreditation every five years during which some courses might lose or retain their certification. Some fully accredited courses could be slammed with interim accreditation if their facilities and faculty are found to have depreciated.
Courses with interim accreditation are due for reassessment after two years, and back to back interim accreditation automatically leads to loss of accreditation.
The NUC says accreditation of courses is necessary to ensure “employers and other members of the community that Nigerian graduates of all academic programmes have attained an acceptable level of competency in their areas of specialization.”
According to the NUC, pre-accreditation activities include drawing up a list of academic programmes to be certified, compilation of list of panel chairmen/members, time-tabling, budgeting and organizing the accreditation coordination meeting for panel chairmen and members in a simulation workshop.
The post-accreditation activities, according to the commission, include analyzing accreditation reports (technical and administrative), ranking of programmes and universities based on their accreditation status, publishing of accreditation status of programmes, issuance of certificates to programmes that earned Full and Interim accreditation results.
IGTV’ analysis of the accreditation result for 2016 showed that 150 courses are currently unaccredited in 13 federal universities, 16 state universities and eight private universities in the country.
The affected universities include universities such as the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; University of Benin, University of Jos, University of Calabar and the University of Abuja which has 15 of its courses, including Law, unaccredited.
See full list of unaccredited courses and their universities in the table below:
S/No School Course
1. University of Nigeria, Nsukka Russian
Dentistry
Statistics
2. University of Benin Anatomy
Pharmacy
3. University of Calabar Business Management
Theatre and Media Arts
Public Health
4. University of Jos History and International Relations
Medical Laboratory Science
Biochemistry
Science Laboratory Technology
5. Federal University of Technology, Owerri Architecture
Microbiology
6. Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola Banking
7. Federal University of Technology, Minna Biology Education
Chemistry Education
Geography Education
Industrial and Technical Education
Mathematics Education
Physics Education
8. University of Abuja Accounting
English Language
Linguistics
Philosophy
Agricultural Education
Biology Education
Chemistry Education
Economics Education
Education (Social Science)
Geography Education
Integrated Science
Mathematics Education
Law
Chemistry
Microbiology
9. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi Automobile Education
Building Technology Education
Business Education
Electrical Electronics Technology Education
Integrated Science
Architecture
Building
Industrial Design
Survey.
