UNIABUJA gets agriculture and others accredited

The Vice-Chancellor, University of Abuja (UniAbuja), Prof. Michael Adikwu, said the institution now has full accreditation to offer courses in Agriculture, Engineering and Veterinary Medicine.


Prof. Michael Adikwu said that the initial accreditation challenge experienced by the institution had been overcome.

“Let me start with agriculture. That was one of the courses that were problematic; we have full accreditation for that now; so we don’t have problem in that area,’’ he said.

“Before I came on board, there was also a problem with engineering; some of the students were farmed out, sent to other universities.

“So, they (the university) had some contact with them and there were few courses they needed to come back and complete and that has been done, and we have graduated two sets put together.
‘’So, we do not have problem with that currently,’’ he said.

On veterinary medicine, Adikwu said that the issue with the course had been sorted out and that the department had started graduating students.
He said that the only department in the university yet to be accredited was medicine, adding that it was being expected.

“They have had the first accreditation; they were successful.
“For medicine, you have to do serial accreditations; they needed to do one for the basic clinical sciences and then the final accreditation.

“So, we are preparing for that and very soon, they too will cross the fence,” he explained.
He said that the university had acquired the basic infrastructure needed for teaching medical students, adding that the institution presently had three sets of students ready for graduation.

The vice chancellor disclosed that the university recently lost its accreditation for law and microbiology programmes because it overshot its admission quota.

He explained that the loss of accreditation for the courses could only stop the university from admitting fresh students for them, adding, however, that the matter would be resolved soon.
He said that the loss of accreditation for law was because the number of students admitted for the programme was high.

According to him, the Council for Legal Education said we should admit 100 students but we were admitting more than 400.

“I know of some other universities which are taking 700 students and they also lost accreditation. Once that is corrected, we will get our accreditation back,’’ Adikwu said.
“We also do not have accreditation for microbiology; I do not think that it is punitive; I think that it is corrective.

“Once the number of our students normalises, we will get our accreditation back,” he stated.

The vice-chancellor, however, said that the corrective measure would not affect the students currently in the law and microbiology programmes, stating that they would graduate soon.

According to him, ”our Faculty of Law is doing very well as it has performed wonderfully in both local and international completions.”