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| The Executive Secretary, NUC, Professor Julius A. Okojie explaining a point as the Deputy Head of
European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Richard Young, when his team visited the Commission |
A team, led by the Deputy Head of the European
Union (EU), Delegation to
Nigeria and the Economic Community
of West African States
(ECOWAS), Mr. Richard Young,
on Wednesday, 23 September,
2015, visited the National Universities
Commission (NUC) to
seek collaboration between Nigerian
Higher Education Institutions
and their European counterparts on
two major issues bordering on
Erasmus Course Programmes and
recognition of qualifications
earned in universities within the
regions.
Receiving the delegation, the
Executive Secretary of the Commission,
Professor Julius A.
Okojie, OON, expressed delight
about the resolve of the team to take
th time out of the 7 Quality Assurance
Conference holding in Nigeria, to
solicit for exchange of ideas on the
two issues. He briefed them on the
functions and roles of NUC, the
history of the Nigerian University System (NUS), especially since the
commencement of regional
universities; from the initial small
number to the present structure of
141, comprising 40 each for
Federal and State Governments as
well as 61 private universities. Professor Okojie said that with the
increase in the number of universities,
NUC's role of ensuring the
orderly development of the NUS
had continued to be challenging.
He stated that private universities
in the country had peculiar governance
structure as they ran their
affairs through their Boards of
Trustees (BoT), which in turn
appoint the Governing Councils
while the Council appoint the Vice
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| NUC Management with the delegation, during the courtesy visit |
Chancellors
and other Principal
Officers. He emphasised that the
Commission had been working
since the last three decades to
maintain balance between granting
access, guaranteeing quality and
stabilising the system.
Professor Okojie stated that the
exchange programme was a
welcome development, adding that
some Nigerian students really
needed to go abroad to study,
particularly for courses that the
universities lacked the required
resources and manpower to train
students such as Aeronautic
Engineering. He told the team that
the NUS would also benefit
immensely from the Erasmus
Course Programme as only about
40 percent of the teaching personnel
had PhDs. It would therefore
complement the present capacity
building of the staff undertaken by
the Tertiary Education Trust Fund
(TETFund).
The Commission, he said, had
continued to work hard, over the
years to maintain a balance
between granting access, guaranteeing
quality and stabilizing the
system.
On the recognition of qualifications,
Professor Okojie said that
there must be common minimum
entry requirements that would be
stipulated for nationals of a country
studying, either in their home
universities or abroad. He stressed
that what was required in the West
African sub-region was to
strengthen the national accreditation
bodies and establish integrity
in the process, through robust
accreditation of programmes and
institutions at their individual
levels before going into regional
affiliations. He affirmed that
Nigerian universities ran a two semester
system and were doing
well, in terms of the quality of
graduates and institutions and
certainly served as a model for the
sub-region. He stated that one of
the challenges inherent in the NUS
was that of the grading system
which the NUC was currently
reviewing in collaboration with the
universities, with the hope of
scrapping the pass degree and
adopting a uniform grading that
would represent common measuring
indices for all graduates in the
country.
Responding to other issues, the
Executive Secretary noted that the
exchange of staff and students was
a welcome idea but that it would
only take place where the Commission
had confidence in the universities
in question. He also faulted the idea of the EU delegation meeting
with the officials of theForeign
Affairs Ministry alone, saying that
it should have consulted with the
NUC right from the outset since
the matter was about university
education.
In his speech, Mr. Young said that
the issue of recognition of qualifications
was one that needed
cooperation between the EU
Council and the NUC, as it would
offer them mutually-benefitting
rewards. While calling for its
exploration, he noted that migration
was a challenging issue which
EU universities had been working
with Immigration authorities in
Nigeria to tackle. This, according
to him, had been categorised into
legal and regular migration,
irregular migration and international
defections, for Nigerians
that had been looking for the
recognition of their qualifications
either for academic or professional
purposes.
On quality assurance in EU
universities, the team leader said
that the European Union Council
was responsible for doing so and
had a register that listed all recognised
institutions within the region. He added that the Council
had produced Guidelines for
Harmonisation of Quality Assurance/
Accreditation of Programmes
in European Universities, which
specified the regulatory framework
that guided inter-university qualifications
across the EU countries and
the processes for the monitoring of
the individual regulatory agencies
within member countries. The Deputy Head disclosed that the
EU Council hoped to support the
initiative of establishing a common
quality assurance framework
within the West-African sub-region
taking cognisance of issues like
programmes and institutional
accreditations, quality of staff and
students and the learning environment.
“The Council had also built a
strong knowledge institution that
was currently involved in offering
facilitation, networking, contract
and legal services, which would
help build a strong regional institution
within ECOWAS and the
African Union, at large”, he said.
O n t h e E r a s m u s Course
Programme, Mr. Young explained
further that it was designed for
education, training, youth and sport
for the period 2014-2020, adding
that it offered a wide range of
opportunities for higher education
students, doctoral candidates, staff
and institutions from around the
world. He stated that the partnership
was also aimed at harnessing
the potentials and development
between European universities and
their Nigerian counterparts.
He pointed out that one of the
benefits of the partnership was that
it offered Nigerian students aspiring
to study in Europe the opportunity
of enjoying a financing initiative
and acquiring a “Joint Master's
Degree” and would also enable the
students apply for a “Short-term”
programme with a valid certification.
He also mentioned the existence
of a European Credit Transfer
Fund (ECTF) system that offered
new guides to those applying to
study in EU countries.
Responding, the Executive Secretary
said that the delegation was in
the right place since the Commission
also served as a link between
Nigerian universities and their counterparts around the world.
The Commission would therefore
intimate the Committee of Vice Chancellors
(CVC) on the collaboration.
At the end of the interaction, the
Executive Secretary nominated
the Directors of Protocol and
Special Duties as well as Research
and Innovation, Mr. Chris Maiyaki
and Dr. Suleiman Ramon Yusuf, to
serve as NUC Desk Officers to
further explore the benefits of the
collaboration.
Other members of the delegation
were the Higher Education Expert,
European University Association,
Elizabeth Coluddi; Director,
European Association for Quality
Assurance in Higher Education,
Maria Kelo; Head of Division,
German Academic Exchange
Service, Stefan Bienefeld and the
International Policy Officer,
European Union Commission,
Deirdre Lennan.
Also at the meeting were some
members of the NUC Management.
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| Professor Okojie with some members of NUC Management and the EU delegation |
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