Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The National Universities Commission (NUC) has given full accreditation to six academic programmes at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
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 programmes are not recognised.
The six programmes accredited for NOUN are: accounting, banking and finance, business administration, marketing, public administration, hotel and catering nanagement.
The approval was sequel to the result of an NUC-organised accreditation visitation to the university headquarters in Abuja in October/November 2019, which according NOUN, showed an impressive score for each of the six programmes, ranging from 78.7 percent to 97.4 percent.
The development was conveyed to the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, in a letter dated 19th March, 2020 and signed by Maryam Sali, the NUC Director of Accreditation, on behalf of the Executive Secretary.
NOUN Director, Media and Publicity, Ibrahim Scheme, in a statement explained that the implication of the accreditation status is that NOUN has secured the mandate of NUC to run these programmes for five years.
The VC, Prof. Adamu, expressed delight over the approval, saying “this shows the readiness of NOUN to fulfill its obligations as a centre of excellence in the Open and Distant Learning (ODL) mode of education.”