Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The National Universities Commission (NUC) has given the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) the nod to run six new academic programmes.
The six accredited programmes are accounting, banking and finance, business administration, marketing, public administration, hotel and catering management.
The approval comes following the result of an NUC-organised accreditation visitation to the university headquarters in Abuja in October and November 2019 where it showed an impressive score for each of the six programmes ranging from 78.7 per cent to 97.4 per cent.
A letter dated March 19 by NUC Director of Accreditation, Maryam Sali, and sent to the Vice-Chancellor of NOUN, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, said the university had secured the mandate of the regulatory agency to run the six programmes for five years.
Adamu, in his response, expressed delight over the approval, saying: “this shows the readiness of NOUN to fulfil its obligations as a centre of excellence in the Open and Distant Learning (ODL) mode of education.”
The NUC is the statutory agency of government with the mandate to accredit academic programmes in all Nigerian universities. Certificates issued to students admitted into unaccredited NUC programmes are not recognised in Nigeria.