By Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) have warned that it is illegal and fraudulent for universities to run courses that have not been accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other regulatory agencies.
Of specific reference, COREN stated that no university or other tertiary institutions must operate any engineering course without passing through the scrutiny of the body saddled with the responsibility of regulating the profession in the country.
The institutions gave the warning on Wednesday when COREN’s accreditation team visited ABUAD’s College of Engineering to assess the university.
Speaking during an interactive session with the university’s management, COREN’s team leader, Prof. John Olorunmaiye, said the visitation was one of the requirements for the attainment of provisional signatory status for the running of courses in Nigeria.
Olorunmaiye, the Vice-Chancellor of Crown University, Eye Nkorin, Kwara State, revealed that the team consists of members of the Board of Engineers (BEM), Malaysia and Pakistan Engineering Councils (PEC).
He said: “We hope for and we are working towards having effective and mutual international partnerships and collaborations for the advancement of our profession and technological development of our countries.
“The COREN accreditation team consists of skilled and knowledgeable professionals from the industry and academia. I would like to assure you that a meticulous work will be done considering the pedigree of the resource persons.
“At this point, let me emphasise that running engineering programmes that have not been accredited by COREN or continuing with programmes with expired or failed accreditation status is illegal and in contravention of the act establishing COREN.
“Let it be known that products of any unaccredited programme will not be registered even if the programme is eventually accredited.
“The emphasis has become necessary because as university with a growing Faculty of Engineering, you may be tempted to commence other engineering programmes in the future without COREN approval. This is not acceptable and must be avoided.”
ABUAD’S Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Michael Ajisafe, described the university’s engineering faculty as a template to others in Nigeria, saying the equipment and qualities of lecturers would pass any
scrutiny, no matter how strict.
“Our Engineering Faculty has 38 labs, even when NUC came, it confessed that 40 per cent of the equipment in ABUAD don’t exist in other universities in this country.
“Aside from that, our graduates are winning local and international laurels. Two of our graduates won awards in London in 2017, which showed the qualities of our graduates.
“Our engineering has Industrial Park with 121 major firms which we are planning to expand to 220 units. Our experts are already working on how to achieve this,” he stated.
