Uchechukwu Nnaike
The Chairman, Governing Board, Nationwide Universities Fee (NUC), and previous Vice-Chancellor, College of Lagos, Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has referred to as for a sustainable, harmonized courting between the NUC and Nigeria’s skilled regulatory our bodies to curb what he described as double oversight.
He additionally advised the Nigerian college formulation to transport from an accreditation-centred tradition to a top quality assurance tradition, announcing that accreditation must be the affirmation of high quality that already exists, no longer the development that creates transient high quality.
This he stated calls for universities to embed programme overview, curriculum forex, group of workers construction, infrastructure renewal, pupil comments, graduate results {and professional} engagement into their customary governance processes.
Ogundipe said this not too long ago, whilst turning in the 2026 convocation lecture of Osun State College, titled ‘Dealing with Double Oversight: Harmonizing the NUC and Skilled Our bodies for a Sustainable College Gadget’.
In step with him, for many years, the NUC and Nigeria’s skilled regulatory our bodies coexisted in an uneasy peace. “Universities understood that they wanted each accreditations and controlled the method as very best they may. However as Nigeria’s college formulation expanded in particular from the Nineties onward, with the proliferation of state and personal universities, the structural tensions between the 2 methods become increasingly more visual and increasingly more pricey.”
He argued that Nigeria does no longer want much less legislation of college training, however wishes higher legislation. “High quality assurance should stay non-negotiable, but it surely turns into counterproductive when more than one regulators workout overlapping mandates, impose inconsistent necessities, replica processes, and go away universities and scholars to undergo the results.”
He stated that the NUC {and professional} regulatory our bodies have endured to conflict in spaces like: curriculum possession and content material, accreditation timelines and prices, minimal requirements vs. skilled requirements, institutional capability {and professional} council resistance to new universities, the post-NYSC skilled registration downside, knowledge asymmetry and knowledge gaps.
In step with him, the unresolved stress impacts institutional making plans, educational group of workers who’re careworn with perpetual accreditation preparation, scholars, public accept as true with within the college formulation, and nationwide construction.
“Nigeria’s construction schedule whether or not articulated thru ERGP, the Financial Sustainability Plan, or the more moderen Renewed Hope Schedule is dependent seriously at the provide of welltrained pros: medical doctors, engineers, attorneys, pharmacists, nurses, architects, accountants. A regulatory formulation that impedes the environment friendly manufacturing of such pros, that creates needless attrition between college commencement {and professional} registration, is a drag on nationwide construction. This is a self-inflicted wound on a rustic that may manage to pay for neither the wound nor the prolong in therapeutic it,” Ogundipe stated.
He subsequently wired that the regulatory calendar should develop into a part of institutional making plans, including that the governing council, senate and control must know, programme by way of programme, the appropriate NUC {and professional} necessities, the standing of each and every accreditation, the following anticipated overview, remarkable suggestions, and the monetary implications. “Accreditation must subsequently characteristic in the once a year running plan and institutional possibility sign up.”
He added that Nigeria wishes a more potent student-protection theory, announcing that no pupil must uncover at commencement {that a} programme has a regulatory downside that the establishment or regulator knew, or ought rather to have recognized, years previous.
He insisted that accreditation standing must be clear at admission and incessantly up to date. “The place a programme is beneath an licensed developmental or period in-between association, scholars must obtain transparent details about the consequences for pro registration.”
The chairman additional advisable that pro accreditation must be developmental, slightly than simply punitive. He stated that the place deficiencies are remediable and don’t pose a right away risk to public protection, the regulatory reaction must distinguish between severe high quality disasters and capability gaps that may be corrected inside an agreed development plan. “That is in particular essential for younger universities and programmes serving areas the place get entry to to skilled training stays restricted.”
He steered universities to simply accept duty, announcing that harmonisation can’t develop into a handy argument for decreasing requirements. “College management should be sure that curricula are present, educational group of workers are correctly certified, laboratories and medical amenities are are compatible for goal, scholars obtain good enough sensible publicity, and proposals from regulatory visits are carried out. A tradition of high quality starts throughout the establishment,” Ogundipe stated.
He additional said that setting up a sustainable, harmonized courting between the NUC and Nigeria’s skilled our bodies calls for: legislative and coverage explanation of jurisdictional barriers; an everlasting nationwide consultative framework; harmonised accreditation protocols; student-protective developmental accreditation; and a shared nationwide regulatory data platform.
He lauded the Minister of Training, Dr. Tunji Alausa’s contemporary reform projects, in particular the established order of a Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and High quality Assurance Gadget for Tertiary Establishments in Nigeria, announcing that his center of attention on harmonising accreditation protocols and tools, in addition to securing the energetic participation {of professional} our bodies, is a crucial step ahead. “Reaching this buy-in, on the other hand, calls for cautious negotiation and sustained engagement.”
Ogundipe wired that the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVC) has crucial position to play in advocating, with a unified voice, for the defined administrative reforms.
He stated particular person universities ceaselessly negotiate one by one with regulatory our bodies, resulting in inconsistent results and ignored alternatives for system-wide reform. He stated {that a} coordinated advocacy technique, evolved by way of the CVC, in partnership with the Affiliation of Personal Universities in Nigeria and the Committee of Professional-Chancellors, would raise better weight than somebody establishment can muster.
Ogundipe additionally steered the graduands and the ones getting into the professions medication, engineering, regulation, pharmacy, the constructed atmosphere, the sciences, to grasp the regulatory framework in their career. “Know what skilled registration calls for of you. Know your skilled frame. Have interaction with it no longer as a bureaucratic impediment, however because the establishment that defines the factors of your calling and protects the general public you might be sworn to serve.”
“Don’t watch for the formulation to come back to you. Move to the formulation. Sign up. Take part. And in time, lead. The pro our bodies of Nigeria, like several human establishments, are formed by way of the individuals who interact with them. The era that reforms the double oversight downside could be sitting on this corridor nowadays,” he stated.