PRE-DEGREE/CERTIFICATE REGISTRATION/SCHOOL FEES

UniPort Scaled NUC Accreditation Hurdle

More cheering news came the way of the University last month as 32 of the 34 programmes it presented to various teams constituted by the National Universities Commission for scrutiny secured full accreditation status in the latest results released by the apex academic regulatory body.
A visibly enthused Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ndowa Lale, broke the heart-warming news on the floor of Senate at its 341st Meeting which held on Wednesday, April 12, 2017. He disclosed that the programmes that received full accreditation spread across several faculties, adding that the clean bill of health would be valid for the next five years.
Programmes that received full accreditation were: Management, Marketing, as well as Hospitality and Tourism Management in the Faculty of Management Sciences; English, History and Diplomatic Studies, Linguistics and Communication Studies, Music, Philosophy, Religious and Cultural Studies, Theatre and Film Studies in the Faculty of Humanities.
Also fully accredited were programmes presented in the Departments of Adult and Non-Formal Education, Business Education, English Education, French Education, History Education, Human Kinetic Education, Political Science Education and Religious Studies in the Faculty of Education. Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Petroleum and Gas Engineering received full accreditation status in the Faculty of Engineering. Biochemistry, Plant Science and Biotechnology, Computer Science, Industrial Chemistry, Mathematics/Statistics and Microbiology were fully accredited in the Faculty of Science, including the School of Science Laboratory Technology.
The success of the exercise was as result of an elaborate preparation mounted by the administration. The University-wide Local Accreditation Committee was directed to painstakingly scrutinise all the programmes presented for accreditation, while affected Departments mobilised all available resources to scale the NUC hurdle. The Management procured essential equipment and consumables requested by each Department, while the exercise was meticulously researched in line the NUC benchmark.  
The low point in the otherwise glittering accomplishment of the University in the last accreditation exercise were the Interim status given to the Department of Fine Arts and Design in the Faculty of Humanities, while the Department of Geology which had previously received back-to-back Interim Accreditation status would be eligible for re-accreditation in November in line with the extant NUC rules governing the exercise.
A letter to this effect signed by the Director of Quality Assurance at the NUC, Dr N. B. Saliu on behalf of the Executive Secretary, stated that the full accreditation status granted to each programme would be valid for five years. He said that Interim Accreditation status would last for two years, after which such programmes would be revisited to ascertain their compliance with established rules. Dr. Saliu further explained that new students will not be admitted into programmes that were denied accreditation until the observed deficiencies were rectified to the satisfaction of the Commission.
In his reaction to the good news, Professor Lale showered praises on the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Hakeem Fawehinmi for ensuring that the accreditation exercise was hugely successful. He also praised the Acting Director of Academic Planning, Dr. Peter Kpolovie; Chairman of the University-wide Local Accreditation Committee, Professor Julian Osuji, Deans and Heads of Department, including support administrative staff for their cooperation and unity of purpose that resulted in the historic accomplishment.
“It is a thing of joy that we secured full accreditation for nearly all the programmes we presented to the NUC for evaluation. It shows that we can achieve anything if we bury our egos and work in concert to achieve the vision and mission of the University. We know why we lost accreditation in Fine Arts and Design and I hope this will serve as a bitter lesson to lecturers in that divided Department,” the Vice-Chancellor said on a note of regret.
Speaking to a UniPort News Correspondent, Professor Fawehinmi, described the outcome of the accreditation as a result of the hard work put in by all stakeholders and the enormous support the team received from the Vice-Chancellor.
He said that the development was indicative of the quality of programmes on offer in the University, which was in line with the vision of the Lale-led administration to build a wholesome and prosperous University. “This is a major achievement of Professor Lale's administration, despite the financial constraints associated with the dwindling internally generated revenue and the bottlenecks created by the Treasury Single Account (TSA). What this means is that our programmes have a clean bill of health and also meet minimum benchmarks. It is a confirmation that the University of Port Harcourt is a first choice destination for academic excellence,” Professor Fawehinmi said.
This achievement would go down in history as the first time the University presented so many programmes to the NUC for accreditation with such an outstanding result.

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