Is This What the National Universities Commission (NUC) Was Set Up To Do?

[Okey Iheduru]

Dear All:

I've copied and pasted below excerpts from a memo a Department Chair in one of Nigeria's private universities sent to the faculty recently.

"Dear All,

Following the Faculty Board Meeting held on the 3rd January 2020 in view of the forthcoming 2019/2020 first semester final examination, the following decision was reached by the Faculty Board members:

1. That all lecturers must have to prepare their Examination question in two types. See attached the final examination question template.
2.  All lecturers should take note of the NUC rules with respect to examination questions i.e only 100 level examination  questions can only be objectives in final examinations with a minimum of 100 objective questions. And for 200 level questions, if the lecturer wishes to set an objective question, the lecturer should do that with at least one (1) commanding theory/essay question.
3. All 300 level, 400 level and postgraduates questions must be in theory/essay form.

Consequently, the department kindly plead with all her lecturers to adhere to the decision of the Faculty Board members.

Thank you for your usual cooperation.

Kind regards..."

Is this level of micro-management not antithetical to the essence of university as a center of learning and innovation? As someone who has participated in about six (6) program accreditation panel visits to Nigerian universities (two of which I was the panel chair), I'd even venture to state that NUC has pretty much turned Nigerian universities into bean-counting caricatures of institutions of higher learning. 

Incidentally, the Commission is currently calling on universities and academic staff (as well as the general public) to send in individual and/or collective proposals to enable it revise its Basic Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) for programs of study in Nigeria's universities, some parts of which were developed back in 1992. Please note that Google and Facebook were founded in 1998 and 2004, respectively. Forum members, this is your chance! I hope you'll spare some time to send in your submissions to the Commission's headquarters in Abuja. 

Regards and a splendid New Year!

Okey

Okey C. Iheduru

e-mail: okeyi...@gmail.com

Just published “The African Corporation, ‘Africapitalism’ and Regional Integration in Africa” (September 2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785362538.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

what are objective qs- yes/no a or b-doing in a university exam paper?

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[Michael Afolayan]

So sad, almost depressing, to see higher education relegated to a glorified elementary school system, headed by the "Village Headmaster" called NUC. With this kind of micro-management, why should we expect any iota of respect from the civilized world, where higher education is not tele-guided by a government agency? I wonder what roles the Ministry of Education has to play in the management of higher education in the country. I also wonder what oversights individual institutions' VCs, Deans, Associate Deans, HODs, Directors, instructors, etc., have over their institutions and their students. Shouldn't I be able to decide the kind of evaluation I want for my students - written, oral, objective, essay, or even none of the above, if I deem it fit for the students that I teach, without having to submit my model of evaluation to a godfather who must approve it? This must be really frustrating and challenging to members of the academic community in Nigeria. So sorry! Hope NUC is annulled. The nation stands to gain nothing by its continuous godfatherly presence over our higher institutions and it would lose nothing by its nullification. 

Oh well . . .

Thanks for sharing this, Okey!

Michael

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