50 of 53 UniAbuja courses accredited – Council

The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of University of Abuja Governing Council, Alhaji Sani Maikudi, has said 50 out of the 53 academic programmes being run in the university have been accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other relevant professional bodies in the country. Speaking at a briefing, Maikudi said courses like engineering, veterinary medicine […]

The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of University of Abuja Governing Council, Alhaji Sani Maikudi, has said 50 out of the 53 academic programmes being run in the university have been accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other relevant professional bodies in the country.

Speaking at a briefing, Maikudi said courses like engineering, veterinary medicine and agriculture have been fully accredited and have been graduating students.

“The Faculty of Engineering where students had to be farmed out to other universities to enable them graduate, and which was barred from admitting fresh students, has since been admitting students after due clearance by the NUC and COREN, the professional regulatory body of engineers,” he said.

He commended the vice chancellor, Prof Michael Adikwu, and other stakeholders for their roles that saw to the graduation of the pioneer medical doctors of the institution.

The pro-chancellor also lauded the performance of five of the graduands who bagged distinction in surgery from the medical school, just as he hailed NUC for its special intervention during the trying period of the school.

“The NUC approved a special programme for the current graduands to obtain by examination a pre-medical degree in either of the specialties of Anatomy, Human Physiology or Medical Biochemistry which makes them now proud recipients of two first degrees of the University of Abuja, one in Basic Medical Sciences obtained in 2016 and the other in Medicine and Surgery to be conferred in 2018,” he said.

In his remark, the vice chancellor of the university, Prof. Michael Adikwu, who corroborated the accreditation of 50 courses, said through various efforts, the university was able to address its numerous accreditation challenges.

“When I came, we only had agriculture that has full accreditation in this university. From 2005 there was no accreditation in this university.

“But now among the 53 courses we run in this university, 50 have accreditation,” Adikwu said.

He said the three programmes that were denied accreditation were as a result of inadequate office facilities.

“We should understand that this university started from a primary school, so most of the facilities we have in our mini campus are based on primary school structures; places that were meant for teachers and headmistress and we are now talking of (offices) for professors.

 “That is why we are having issue of accreditation challenge in the courses. In fact it is only Political Science that has serious challenge but others are accredited. So we are going to have a lot of admission this year,” the VC said.