By Arowona Abdulazeez
The acceptance rating of the University of Ilorin continues to soar as the National Universities Commission (NUC) has given full accreditation to all the 23 academic programmes presented recently by the Better by far institution.
This was made known by the NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, in a letter he wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali (OON), a copy of which was made available to Unilorin Bulletin last Monday (April 24, 2017).
In the letter, dated March 29, 2107 and signed on behalf of the NUC boss by the Commission’s Director of Quality Assurance, Dr. N. B. Saliu, the NUC stated that this was the outcome of the accreditation exercise it carried out on the University in November last year.
The full accreditation status given the 23 courses cut across eight Faculties in the University.
A breakdown of the accredited programmes showed that two are in the Faculty of Administration; three in the Faculty of Agriculture; 10 in the Faculty of Arts; two in the Faculty of Engineering; one in the Faculty of Law; three in the Faculty of Physical Sciences, one in the Faculty of Social Sciences and one in the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences.
The academic programmes are Accounting, Business Administration, Agriculture, Food Science, Home Economics, Arabic Studies, Christian Religious Studies, Comparative Religious Studies, English Language, and French.
Others are Linguistics, History and International Studies, Islamic Religious Studies, Performing Arts, Yoruba, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Law, Chemistry, Geology, Industrial Chemistry, Mass Communication and Political Science.
It is recalled that in March this year, the NUC also announced that based on the accreditation exercise it carried out in August last year, all the academic programmes in two Faculties – Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine – as well as seven other Departmental programmes got full accreditation.
These are Forestry and Wildlife in the Faculty of Agriculture; Business Education, Agriculture Education and Social Studies in the Faculty of Education; Water Resources Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Technology; Quantity Surveying and Urban and Regional Planning in the Faculty of Environmental Sciences.
Four other programmes were given interim accreditation. These are: Marketing in the Faculty of Administration; Material and Meteorological Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Technology; as well as Architecture and Surveying and Geo-Informatics in the Faculty of Environmental Science.
The NUC, however, denied accreditation to two programmes – Social Works and Psychology – in the Faculty of Social Science.
On the implications of the accreditation status earned by respective academic programmes, the NUC explained that full accreditation status is valid for a period of five years.
The Commission added that “interim accreditation status is valid for two years after which the programme will be re-visited”.
