Dawn broke last Friday at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State, like every other day. The atmosphere was calm as students filed into their classes for lectures. Then came the news that the school has lost accreditation for Law, Dentistry, Botany, Fine and Applied Arts, Family Nutrition and Consumer Sciences.
The news shook the campus. Students of the affected departments, who had gathered for classes in the early hours of the day, left their lecture rooms dejected. They could not stomach the news. While many had no words to describe the development, it was a moment of lamentations for some whose academic pursuits are hanging in the balance.
The National Universities Commission (NUC), last week, notified the OAU management that it had withdrawn accreditation for five disciplines, prompting the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to request prospective students who chose the courses to change to other disciplines.
CAMPUSLIFE gathered that the Department of Botany never had full accreditation.
With the recent development, the departments will not admit any student for the 2018 academic session. It was also gathered that, if the accreditation stalemate is not sorted out in time, final year student will be delayed from graduating. This may later force them to transfer to other departments.
Olawale Olaniyonu, an applicant, described the notification as “a rude shock:” He said the development would affect many in his category, seeking admission into the school because they had applied to be admitted into the disciplines, which they were directed to change.
Another applicant, Oluwaseun Ajibade, said: “I wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 2016 and scored 218. But I was not admitted for Law programme with the score. I wrote another UTME last year and scored 266, but I was not offered the admission to study Law. This year, when I scored 308 in UTME and was upbeat about my admission, the bad news of non-accreditation of Law programme came up. I don’t know who I have offended.”
The OAU Law Students’ Society(LSS) President, Daniel Adedigba, called for calm among students, saying the loss of accreditation should not be seen as the end of their programme.
He said: “It’s been confirmed that Faculty of Law has lost its accreditation, but students should not despair because the school authorities are already working on the remedy. Already, the Vice Dean of Law is in Abuja to attend to the situation.”
A Botany student, Opeyemi Akinola, said if the issue was not sorted out on time, she may have to leave the department and move to the Department of Mathematics Education.
Uthman Samad, a Law student, said the first time Faculty of Law lost accreditation was in 1992, which forced the students to other departments. He feared the same thing might happen with the unfolding development.
Sulieman Usman, Medical Rehabilitation student President, said the department was fully accredited, but wondered why it failed the re-accreditation test a few months ago.
Also, a Dentistry student, who pleaded for anonymity, said the department lost accreditation because of inadequate facilities in the laboratory.
A source in the management told CAMPUSLIFE that the Department of Family Nutrition and Consumer Science lost accreditation because of wrong syllabus.
Meanwhile, the management has assured students that it is working hard to address the issue. The school said all the affected programmes had interim status during the last re-accreditation exercise, but the full accreditation was denied because of the NUC’s regulation, which prohibits back-to-back interim status for universities.
A statement by the University’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Abiodun Olanrewaju, urged those who applied to study Law, Dentistry, Fine and Applied Arts, Botany and Family Nutrition and Consumer Sciences, to either change from the courses or choose another university until the issue is resolved.
The statement reads: “The general accreditation exercise was conducted across all universities in December, 2017 and the non-accreditation of some programmes cut across all universities and is not peculiar to OAU.
“There are 106 programmes offered by OAU, of which the five mentioned have issues with accreditation. Although all the programmes had interim status during the last accreditation exercise, they were denied accreditation because of the existing NUC regulation which does not allow for back- to-back interim status.
“The management is working assiduously to address the issues raised by the NUC. It, therefore, has no doubt that the affected programmes will be restored hopefully in the forthcoming accreditation exercise slated for November.”
Olanrewaju said the management appreciated the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for releasing funds to upgrade the existing structures and facilities in the university. He assured stakeholders, parents and guardians that the management was “seriously attending” to the development and pleaded for understanding.
“The management will continue to do all within its power to uphold and build upon the academic excellence for which the university is known,” he added.
The Nation
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