UNIJOS secures over 90% full accreditation for undergraduate programmes

Over Ninety Percent (90%) of Undergraduate Programmes being run by the University of Jos have been granted Full Accreditation Status by the National Universities Commission (NUC). This is an increase from the 57.3% of Programmes earlier granted Full Accreditation Status in the University before the latest Accreditation Exercise carried out by the NUC in January this year.

With this development, the University of Jos now ranks among the top Ten (10) Federal Universities in Nigeria in terms of the percentage of Programmes with Full Accreditation Status which is the highest Full Accreditation Percentage the University has ever achieved since the process was introduced in the University between 1999 and 2000.

It would be recalled that the NUC had conducted an Accreditation exercise for Forty (40) Undergraduate Programmes and Two (2) Postgraduate Programmes at the University of Jos last January and recently released the Report of the Accreditation exercise. In the Report addressed to the Vice-Chancellor, University of Jos, Professor Tanko Ishaya and signed by the NUC’s Director of Accreditation on behalf the Executive Secretary, the Two (2) Postgraduate Programmes (M.Sc. Accounting and M.Sc. Business Management) as well as Thirty-Five (35) out of the Forty (40) Undergraduate Programmes got Full Accreditation Status while only Five (5) got Interim.

The Programmes that were granted Full Accreditation Status include some flagship Programmes in the University such as Accounting, Banking & Finance, Nursing, Criminology & Security Studies, Law, Political Science, Economics as well all the Engineering Programmes. The University, therefore, scored an impressive 88.09% in terms of those Programmes that were assessed during the exercise. Initially when Professor Tanko Ishaya took over as Vice-Chancellor of the University in December last year, only Forty-three (43) out of the Seventy-five (75) Undergraduate Academic Programmes representing 57.3% had Full Accreditation Status, while Thirty (30) representing 40% had Interim Status and were due for Accreditation. Two (2) were also said to be maturing. The implication was that more than a one-third of Undergraduate Academic Programmes in the University were at risk of being denied had they not been successful in the recent Accreditation exercise.

With the release of result of the exercise, however, Sixty-Nine (69) out of the Seventy-five (75) Undergraduate Programmes run by the University of Jos now have Full Accreditation Status, thereby increasing the percentage of Programmes with Full Accreditation from 57.3% to an outstanding 92.0%.

However, out of the Five (5) Programmes that were granted Interim Status, three (3), Fine & Applied Arts; Anatomy and Adult Education, which had Interim Status in the previous accreditation exercise, had their Status Denied by the NUC because they could only secure consecutive Interim Accreditation Status due to some unavoidable circumstances. The University has indicated its intention to rectify this anomaly during the next Accreditation exercise coming up later in the year. Other Programmes granted Interim Status are Statistics and Dental Surgery.

Reacting to the cheering news, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jos, Professor Tanko Ishaya expressed confidence that with this development, the ranking of the University will significantly improve and urged Academics and Researchers in the University to intensify their efforts towards gaining more international visibility so that the University would continue to be rated highly.

Professor Tanko commended all those who made the feat possible especially the University’s Director of Academic Planning and Management, Professor Abiye Solomon and Staff of the Directorate including Deans, Heads of Departments, Staff of the Faculties and Departments as well as Students of the affected Departments and Faculties in addition to other members of the University community.

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has the statutory mandate to accredit Academic Programmes in all Nigerian Universities in consonance with the provisions of the approved Government guidelines. The initial Accreditation of a new Programme is held after the Programme has run for at least Two (2) Academic Sessions following approval for the establishment of the Programme.