Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Nigerian Universities: The Management Imperative

Authors: F. O Anugom

Abstract:

The general functions of the university amongst other things include teaching, research and community service. Universities are recognized as the apex of learning, accumulating and imparting knowledge and skills of all kinds to students to enable them to be productive, earn their living and to make optimum contributions to national development. This is equivalent to the production of human capital in the form of high level manpower needed to administer the educational society, be useful to the society and manage the economy. Quality has become a matter of major importance for university education in Nigeria. Accreditation is the systematic review of educational programs to ensure that acceptable standards of education, scholarship and infrastructure are being maintained. Accreditation ensures that institution maintain quality. The process is designed to determine whether or not an institution has met or exceeded the published standards for accreditation, and whether it is achieving its mission and stated purposes. Ensuring quality assurance in accreditation process falls in the hands of university management which justified the need for this study. This study examined accreditation and quality assurance: the management imperative. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The design was a correlation survey with a population of 2,893 university administrators out of which 578 Heads of department and Dean of faculties were sampled. The instrument for data collection was titled Programme Accreditation Exercise scale with high levels of reliability. The research questions were answered with Pearson ‘r’ statistics. T-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses. It was found among others that the quality of accredited programme depends on the level of funding of universities in Nigeria. It was also indicated that quality of programme accreditation and physical facilities of universities in Nigeria have high relationship. But it was also revealed that programme accreditation is positively related to staffing in Nigerian universities. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommend that academic administrators should be included in the team of those who ensure quality programs in the universities. Private sector partnership should be encouraged to fund programs to ensure quality of programme in the universities. Independent agencies should be engaged to monitor the activities of accreditation teams to avoid bias.

Keywords: Accreditation, quality assurance, NUC, physical facilities, staffing.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1126870

References:

[1] Alani, R.A. & llusanya, G. (2008). Accreditation outcomes, quality of and access to university education in Nigeria. Journal of Quality Assurance in Education, 16(3), 301-312.
[2] Utuka, G. (2011). Demonstrating quality: Evaluation of institutional and programme accreditation in Ghana. International Journal of Vocational and Technical Education, 3(8), 135-142.
[3] Okebukola, P.A.O. (2010). Fifty Years of Higher Education in Nigeria: Trends in Quality Assurance. Presented at the International Conference on the Contributions of Nigerian Universities from 27-29 September.
[4] Dey, N. (2011). Quality assurance and accreditation in higher education in India. Academic Research International, 1(1), 104-110.
[5] Okojie, J.A. (2008). Licensing, Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Nigerian Universities: Achievements and challenges: A Paper Presented at a Session of the 2008 CHEA Summer Workshop from 26-27 June. Available at www.chea.org/pdf/2008 Julius Qkoiie. (accessed on 3rd Januarv.2013).
[6] Aghenta, J.A. (2006). Higher education in Nigeria. Lagos: Nigeria Academy of Education.
[7] Onifade, G.O, Onifade, F.N, Omotosho, A. & Nwaogu, H. (2011). The Impact of Nigerian University Libraries in Accreditation of Academic Programmes: A case study. A Journal of Pacific Northwest Library Association, 75(4), available at www.pnla.org (Accessed on 6th January, 2013).
[8] National Universities Commission (1999). Approved minimum Academic Standards in Environmental Sciences for all Nigerian Universities, NUC, Lagos.
[9] Okorie, N.C. & Uche, M.C. (2004) Total Quality Management (TQM) in Education: Its Imperatives and key Concepts, in Nnabuo, P.O.M, Okorie, N.C, Ajabi, O.G. and Igwe, L.E.B (Eds) Fundamentals of Educational Management (45-78) Owerri: Versatile.
[10] Obadara, O.E. & Alaka, A.A. (2013). Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Nigerian Universities. Journal of Education and Practice, 4(8): 34-41
[11] Akhuemonkhan, I. A. & Raimi, L. (2014). Impact of quality assurance on technical vocational education and training (TVET) in Nigeria. Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences, 5(5), 1-24.
[12] Oribabor, O.A. (2008). Impact of national universities commission accreditation exercise on university administrative structure. African Research Review, an International Multidisciplinary Journal, Ethiopia, 2(3), 222-235.
[13] Oyekan, O.A. (2013). Benchmarking Periodic Review, Minimum Standard and Exchange Programme for Staff and Students as predictors of quality of graduates in Nigerian Public Universities. Journal of Education and Policy Review, 5(2): 27-42.