Accreditation: ASUU kicks against ministerial committee

File photo: Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has urged the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, to dissolve the newly inaugurated Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions.

ASUU, however, backed the minister’s decision to sanction universities that manipulate accreditation exercises by temporarily presenting borrowed lecturers, equipment and other facilities as their own.

The union President, Prof Chris Piwuna, stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Friday.

Piwuna, while acknowledging the need for greater scrutiny of accreditation exercises in universities, warned that the initiative could undermine the statutory powers of the National Universities Commission.

“Accreditation exercises need serious attention. More scrutiny than it is currently receiving,” Piwuna said.

However, he maintained that the responsibility for university accreditation rested with the NUC and not the Federal Ministry of Education, urging the minister to strengthen the commission rather than create a parallel structure.

“But it is the role of the NUC, not the Ministry of Education. The Minister must dissolve the committee he has set up. They can’t usurp the regulatory role of NUC. The HM must task NUC to clean up the process,” he said.

While supporting sanctions against institutions that breach regulatory requirements, Piwuna said the solution was to strengthen the NUC rather than establish a structure that could overlap with its statutory responsibilities.

“Defaulting institutions must be punished. We agree with the Minister on that, but he needs to strengthen NUC, not weaken it,” he said.

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Alausa inaugurated the ministerial committee on Wednesday as part of the Federal Government’s efforts to overhaul accreditation and quality assurance across universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

The committee, chaired by the former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, is expected to review existing accreditation policies, standards and guidelines and recommend measures to modernise the system.

It is also expected to examine the accreditation processes of the NUC, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education.

The minister said the reform was aimed at transforming accreditation from a largely periodic exercise into a continuous, digital and data-driven quality assurance system.

Alausa also warned tertiary institutions against temporarily presenting borrowed lecturers, equipment, laboratories and other facilities to accreditation teams.

He said officials found to have compromised accreditation standards could lose their jobs, while private institutions found culpable could have their licences revoked.

The minister’s position followed concerns over alleged weaknesses in the accreditation system, including claims that some institutions temporarily assemble personnel and facilities ahead of accreditation visits, thereby presenting a misleading picture of their actual capacity.

The proposed reforms seek to deploy digital verification, institutional databases and other technologies to ensure that information submitted during accreditation reflects the resources genuinely available to students.