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NUC Ranks Nigerian Universities

UNIVERSITY of Lagos (UNILAG) has confirmed its superiority in the academic quality among the first generation universities, according to the 2003 ranking released yesterday by the National Universities Commission (NUC). With 3.63 per cent, UNILAG is followed by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) with 3.57 per cent; University of Benin (UNIBEN) scores 3.55 per cent. Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU) and University of Ibadan (UI) with 3.40 per cent; 3.14 per cent in that order.

For the second generation universities, the University of Port Harcourt came top with 3.75 per cent, followed by the University of Jos (UNIJOS) with 3.47 per cent. University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Ilorin; Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka; Maiduguri and Calabar followed with 3.34 per cent; 3.36 per cent; 3.26 per cent and 3.24 per cent.

For the state-owned universities, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso came top with 3.40 per cent, followed by the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye with 3.30 percent. Imo State University, Owerri, came third with 3.20 per cent while Enugu State University of Science and Technology, came fourth with 3.20 per cent, Abia State University, Uturu, scored 3.10 per cent.

In a statement while releasing the latest ranking yesterday, NUC's Executive Secretary, Prof. Peter Okebukola, said the ranking was approved by the board of the commission at its 48th statutory meeting of July 31 at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. He said the ranking was based on the outcome of a panel of experts made up of largely academics and representatives of the commission set up to conduct accreditation and assessment of all academic programmes that were denied recognition during the 1999/2000 accreditation exercise. "The result of this exercise was averaged with data derived from the 1999/2000 comprehensive accreditation exercise. The output of this averaging exercise was used to produce a fresh ranking of Nigerian universities according to the accreditation status of their academic programmes as at November 2002. "Not unexpectedly, the positions of institutions on the league table have changed in some cases...," he said, citing University of Port Harcourt and OAU as providing examples of universities that have made the most significant gains in performance.

He said that the intention of the accreditation of academic programmes of universities was to assure prospective entrants, their parents, consumers of university products and international community that such programmes meet certain minimum expectations of quality. Accreditation also informs the university and its proprietor of how well the institution is doing with regard to the assessed programmes. He noted that of the 185 programmes which were denied accreditation status that were assessed in November, 2002, 19.4 per cent had full accreditation; 70.9 per cent interim and only 9.7 per cent remained at denied status. For him, this is an evidence of the efforts of the affected institutions towards remedying deficiencies detected in the previous exercise.

He listed the criteria used for the assessment as among the following: academic content; philosophy and objectives of the programmes, curriculum content, admission into the programmes, academic regulations, evaluation of students' work and standard of tests and examination. Others include teaching and non-teaching staffers, administration of department and its staffers development programme, physical facilities such as libraries among others.