Peter Okebukola
As 2019 draws to a close, Nigeria boasts a total of 171 universities enrolling slightly over two million full-time and part-time undergraduate and postgraduate students offering about 4,500 programmes. It is the most expansive in sub-Saharan Africa.
Graduates from these programmes are not expected to be hugely variegated in quality hence the installation of minimum standards and enforcement of these standards to ensure that each and every graduate regardless of where he or she is picking up a degree is equipped with minimum knowledge and competencies matching the degree.
This means that if we walked into an NYSC orientation camp with some instrument crafted from NUC-approved minimum standards to measure the quality of graduates, the medical doctor from University of Benin will exhibit the same basic competency (the operative word is basic) as a medical doctor from Lagos State University, Ahmadu Bello University or University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The same goes for the graduate of education, engineering, history or economics. This is the logic behind accreditation.
Accreditation is one of the tools in the arsenal of a quality assurance agency like the National Universities Commission (NUC) to provide public trust that the products of the university system are fit for purpose.
The other tools include visitations, external examiner system, students’ assessment of lecturers, entrance examination for students (UTME), external assessment of publications of lecturers and interviews for staff for appointment and promotion.
These tools find application in the two types of accreditation- programme and institutional. As the name implies, programme accreditation focuses narrowly on the programme e.g. B.Sc. Accounting or B.A. Igbo.
On the other hand, institutional accreditation has a broader spectrum of objectives as it is concerned with the total standing of the institution and not limited to specific academic programmes.
Institutional accreditors are interested in such matters as the vision and mission of the university and efforts to attain them; academic (curriculum) delivery system; governance of the university; efficiency of administration; stability of academic calendar; ease of issuance of transcripts; health and sports facilities on campus; quality of road network; student and staff welfare including quality of hostels.
The world over, the process of accreditation (programme or institutional) follows a rather stereotypical algorithm. There are five key steps. Step 1 is setting of minimum standards. Step 2 is self-study by the institution using regulator-approved minimum standards; step 3 is external visit by a panel of accreditors to assess compliance with the minimum standards; step 4 is decision by the regulatory agency and the fifth step is public disclosure of the decision.
Accreditation decision by the regulatory agency is usually of three types- full accreditation (where a score of at least 70% is earned for each of the key clusters of variables in the list of minimum standards); interim accreditation where a sub-70% score is earned for one of the key clusters of variables and denied accreditation where there is underperformance, that is less than 70% score in more than two clusters of variables.
Having been established in 1974 (in 1962 as an advisory agency in the Cabinet Office), NUC is the oldest university regulatory agency in Africa (the equivalent regulatory agency of South Africa was established in 1997 and that of Egypt in 2007). Hence, NUC is an early bird in implementing the accreditation agenda in the African higher education space.
By 1991/1992, it conducted its first accreditation exercise and for 27 years, has gained fluency in the conduct of programme accreditation. It had a pilot run of institutional accreditation in 2012.
Over the last 15 years or so, many of the newer national quality assurance agencies in Africa flock to NUC for institutional and human capacity building, more or less, “to learn from their ‘senior’”.
Within the last two weeks, the issue of compromise of the accreditation process has stirred the nest of public discussion.
A few clarifications have become necessary within this discussion space. Several points will need to be made.
First, of the five stages in the accreditation process, stages 1, 2, 4 and 5 are hardly amenable to being compromised. These are setting of minimum standards, self-study, decision by NUC and public disclosure. The weakest link is stage 3- onsite visit.
The second point to make is that a battery of factors converge to expose the flank of stage 3 to abuse. Chief of this is inadequacy of funds to drive the process from the NUC end.
For a long time, budgetary allocation to NUC for the conduct of accreditation was paltry. The resultant was poor remuneration for accreditors which turned out to be a stimulant for alleged sharp practices by few members of some of the accreditation teams.
The other factor is the propensity of some members of the academic community who have imbibed the culture of corruption that pervades the larger Nigerian society to smear the process with alleged untoward demands.
Since an elephant cannot give birth to a rat (except through some form of genetic engineering!), the behaviours of members of the Nigerian university community are largely reflective of what happens in the larger society.
Yes, the ivory tower should rise above mean behaviours and be the beacon of exemplary conduct. However, the environment for the display of such conduct in our universities is hardly clement for nurturance.
Massive and sustained programme of values reorientation are needed countrywide and university systemwide to set us all on the path of righteousness.
The dust raised on the accreditation process is premised on some alleged malpractices. Some of the alleged sharp practices include borrowing of equipment and personnel by some of the under-resourced universities seeking accreditation of their programmes and alleged financial inducement of accreditors by the management of some of the universities.
Theorists on motivation of the ilk of Abraham Maslow have explained these behaviours as fear of failure or need for achievement (nAch). Truth told, such unacceptable behaviours dent the credibility of the accreditation process and make a mockery of quality assurance.
Over the last several years, the ears of the authorities of NUC have not been deaf to these alleged malfeasance and Nigerians need to be told, loud and clear that the machinery for halting the accreditation missteps is already in motion and now oiled by the Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed leadership of NUC to proceed in quick match.
His Blueprint on the Revitalisation of the Nigerian University System, 2019-2023 captures the Rasheed Plan in great detail. What are the major elements of this machinery?
In the past, universities can invite NUC to send panels for programme accreditation at a time they find convenient. Such universities are alleged to scout for universities in their neighbourhood that have earned full accreditation and borrow equipment and staff for their accreditation/reaccreditation. As soon as the NUC team leaves, the borrowed resources are returned to the owner university.
Of course, the borrower university smiles away with full accreditation but revert to its old poorly-resourced state. Graduates from these universities end up largely half-baked. Those days of sporadic accreditation are gone and gone forever.
Now, accreditation is conducted in a season on a national scale, dimming the hope to borrow equipment and personnel.
More importantly, all equipment are expected to have the names of the owner university engraved (not just scribbled with a marker) and deeply etched in a visible location on the equipment.
The accreditation instrument clearly states that any equipment that is not so labelled is assumed not to be owned by the university. A score of zero beckons. The matter of personnel is similarly treated although using a different formula in recognition of academic staff shortage systemwide.
On the issue of financial inducement of accreditors, the mechanism to exterminate is quadrifurcated. The “Don’t give, don’t receive” order of Professor Abubakar Rasheed rings throughout the accreditation process and breaches have severe consequences.
Second, the process is configured in a way that even if a vice-chancellor gives, it counts for nought since the panel would have totalled the scores before interfacing with the university management at the exit meeting.
Thirdly, whistle-blowers are known to be embedded in the panels and the fear of someone “blowing the alarm” if gratification is received by any member, is a good deterrent.
Fourthly, NUC has finalised arrangements with other regulatory bodies in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America to ensure that as much as possible, accreditation panels have international members.
Taken together, these efforts and others will increase public trust in the NUC accreditation process. We cannot stress enough that other regulatory bodies especially those for professional courses need to be in lockstep with NUC in the quest to make the accreditation process more credible.
For me, joint accreditation teams is the best model rather than the accreditation overload on universities where each regulator wants to flex its muscle of territoriality and send separate teams to universities.
A point that we must not overlook is the vexed issue of poor funding of the accreditation process. If NUC is not provided the funds to cover the full cost of accreditation including good remuneration for accreditors, we open the flank of the process to corruption.
The professor who has to buy his/her flight ticket pending reimbursement may succumb to temptation of gratification.
Happily, NUC has tackled this challenge by wiring cost of travels to the bank accounts of its accreditors.
Urgently needed is adequate budgetary provision for accreditation to NUC to insulate it from the danger of exposing its accreditors to corrupt practices.
Asking the universities to pay for accreditation also denudes the process. The federal government should bear the total funding cost of accreditation at least until such a time when our universities can be sufficiently funded to have a budget line to pay for accreditation that will not hurt the finances of the institution.
If they wish and are able, the universities hosting accreditation panels could provide ground transportation and hotel accommodation and university souvenirs. Offering “brown”, blue or white “envelopes” should be a no-go area.
We need to congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari on his unrelenting war against corruption and forecast direct proportionality between the rate at which the war is won nationwide and the corruption index of the constituent parts of the nation.
It is foolhardy to expect the universities to be markedly different in behavioural indices from the larger society.
Nigerian universities are not populated by Martians, hence when persons outside the Nigerian university community bemoan the specks in our eyes, they should look at the logs in their own eyes.
We will continue to do our best to be positively different and set good examples for the nation. As stated earlier, we need a national behavioural system reset and values reorientation. There are high hopes that 2020 will mark a new beginning for Nigeria and for its much-respected university system.
