Don’t run unaccredited courses, COREN, ABUAD warn institutions
The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria(COREN) and the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), have harped on the need for tertiary institutions to run accredited courses, warning that it is illegal not to do so.
The institutions, which gave the warning on Wednesday when COREN’s accreditation team visited ABUAD’s College of Engineering to assess the university pointed out that such accreditation is carried out by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other regulatory agencies.
COREN team leader, Prof. John Olorunmaiye, during an interactive session with the university’s management said the visitation was one of the requirements for the attainment of
provisional signatory status for the running of courses in Nigeria.
He stated that no university and other tertiary institutions must operate any engineering course without passing through the scrutiny of the body, saddled with the responsibility of regulating the profession in the country.
Olorunmaiye, who is the Vice Chancellor of the Crown University, Eye Nkorin , Kwara State, disclosed that the team consists of members of the Board of Engineers (BEM) , Malaysia and Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
He said, “We hope for and we are working towards having effective and mutual international partnerships and collaborations for the advancement of our profession and technological development of our countries.
“The COREN accreditation team consists of skilled and knowledgeable professionals from the industry and academia. I would like to assure that a meticulous work will be done considering the pedigree of the resource persons.
He emphasized that running engineering programmes that have not been accredited by COREN or continuing with programmes with expired or failed accreditation status is illegal and in contravention of the Act establishing COREN.
According to him, products of any unaccredited programme will not be registered even if the programme is eventually accredited, pointing out that the emphasis has become necessary because as university with a growing Faculty of Engineering, you may be tempted to commence other engineering programmes in the future without COREN approval. “This is not acceptable and must be avoided”, he warned.
In his speech, ABUAD’S Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Ajisafe, described the university’s engineering faculty as a template to others in Nigeria, adding that the equipment and qualities of lecturers would pass any scrutiny, no matter how strict.
“Our Engineering has 38 labs , even when NUC came , it confessed that 40 percent of the equipment in ABUAD don’t exist in other universities in this country”.
