By Adekunle Adekoya

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has inaugurated its first ever Online Programme Accreditation Portal. It is a new initiative aimed to fully automate the accreditation process of Universities’ Academic Programmes as carried out by the NUC in order to ensure that the Minimum Academic Standard Document in every programme is attained, maintained and fully complied with by our universities as enshrined in the laws establishing the commission.

The portal provides benefits such as the automation of database of all universities in Nigeria with links to NUC for proper management of our university system. The inauguration was held last Friday at the University of Calabar, Cross River State. The new user friendly online accreditation process will immediately come on stream with real-time updates of information and data management.

According to Professor Julius Okojie, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), “with the Online Programme Accreditation System, the NUC has taken a major stride forward in making access to information more transparent and easier to apply in carrying out its oversight functions.”

Professor Okojie said the project will harvest and display information directly from NUC portal and databases. This allows for a secured, timely and cost effective database system of all Nigerian universities as it enables universities to upload students, academic and non-academic staff dData and the entire professors’ information (e.g. Name, Qualification, Area of Specialization, and Date of Professorship etc. More so, the portal can detect double record input of lecturers/professors in more than one university and pops up an alert to the user.

Hon. Paul Adingwupu, Project Consultant on National Universities Commission Data Base project (NUCDB), said harmonization of information standards and formats will facilitate the development of many other knowledge areas of our university system and ultimately aid Nigerian Universities to be among the world best.

Adingwupu, while espousing the benefits of the NUC online programme accreditation portal, stressed that the portal boasts of well secured features intended to modernize and improve the inspection and accreditation process.  He said that the project has opened up new frontiers of engagement for the benefit of all stakeholders in the education sector and the general public.

The NUC Online Programme Accreditation System is one of the many benefits of the National Universities Commission Data Base (NUCDB) project, introduced on November 12, 2008 to help NUC enforce the laws establishing, regulating and sanitizing the product of the Nigerian Universities for improved quality and visibility among other objectives.