Tension in UI over alleged withdrawal of accreditation of courses

There are fears that the National Uni­versity Commis­sion (NUC) may have withdrawn the ac­creditation of some courses at the University of Ibadan.

The leadership of the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, and the National Uni­versity Commission, NUC yesterday withheld com­ments on the allegation of NUC withdrawing the ac­creditation for Faculty of Pharmacy of the university.

Both the Vice Chancel­lor of the university, Prof Id­owu Olayinka and the NUC Deputy Executive Secretary, Prof Chinedu Mafiana de­clined comments on the purported withdrawal of the accreditation.

However, the allega­tion of the withdrawal has thrown the academic com­munity into crisis as those that applied into the Faculty in the recently concluded Unified Tertiary Matricula­tion Examination, UTME are panicking on what would be their fate.

Investigations revealed that the withdrawal of the accreditation was sequel to the inability of the varsity management to provide es­sential laboratory facilities required for the training of Pharmacy students in the institution.

A source at the NUC stated that the university authority had been warned twice by the Commission over the lack of essential fa­cilities in the Faculty in the past seven years.

According to the source, the varsity was issued inter­im accreditation precisely in the year 2012 and 2014 as warnings but in the year 2016 when the commit­tee visited again and dis­covered that the university management had still not done anything to improve the situation, it immediately withdrew accreditation.

Another source within the university stated that some of the lecturers in the Faculty who spoke under anonymity regretted the development, saying it is a bad omen and gross shame for the premier univer­sity to record withdrawal of accreditation in one of her very strong areas of strength.

“Ibadan Pharmacy used to be first among the best in the country”, some of them said.

“You see, most often many of these faculties, de­partments and units have been struggling to survive especially under the previ­ous administration and the incumbent. All the depart­ments and faculties are not faring well at all. In fact, they are operating with zero budgetary allocation and really we cannot blame them because it is the re­sponsibility of the univer­sity authority to throw its weight behind the faculties and source for funds for such essential facilities.”