By Maryam Abeeb
The National Universities Commission (NUC) has urged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to stop misleading Nigerians about the new university curriculum termed, the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards.
NUC’s Deputy Executive Secretary (Academics), Dr Noel Biodum Saliu, stated this in a statement recently while responding to claims made by ASUU in a publication that it is not within the commission’s mandate to develop or review curricula for Nigerian universities.
He clarified that there are two acts of the enabling law under which the NUC operates that provide the legal framework for the quality assurance and regulatory mandates of the commission.
“The first act is the National Universities Commission Act No. N81 Laws of the Federation Nigeria (L.F.N.) 2011, which established the NUC as a body corporate responsible for advising the federal and state governments on all aspects of university education and the general development of universities in Nigeria.
“The second act is the Education (National Minimum Standards and Establishment of Institutions) Act No. E3 L.F.N. 2004, which empowers the NUC to set minimum standards for universities and other institutions of higher learning in the federation and to accredit their degrees and other academic awards in consultation with the universities and with prior approval from the president,” he said.
Saliu further explained the NUC’s involvement in curriculum development and review, stating, “Following the enactment of the NUC Act No. E3 L.F.N. 2004, the Commission developed the first set of Minimum Academic Standards (MAS) in 1989 for all the academic programmes existing in the Nigerian University System (NUS) at that time.”
He mentioned that the MAS served as reference documents for the initial accreditation of programs conducted in the NUS in 1990 adding that the MAS was later replaced with the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) in a comprehensive curriculum review in 2004.
He added that while the BMAS was approved for use in Nigerian universities in 2007, a second attempt at reviewing the BMAS occurred in 2011 but was not followed up.
Saliu emphasized that Nigerian universities have always been primarily involved in the development and review of the curriculum in the NUS, with the NUC coordinating the process.
“The claim that there is no evidence to show that the universities were involved in the true sense of revision of the BMAS development and the subsequent implementation of the CCMAS in the NUS is also far from the truth,” he said.
He explained that the curriculum review process started in 2018, with subject area experts in Nigerian universities producing draft documents that were circulated among Nigerian academics for their comments.
Saliu noted that the NUC incorporated the comments received into the respective programs adding that the practice of incorporating inputs from Nigerian universities has been a tradition of the NUC since 1989.
He clarified that on the curriculum provision ratio, the NUC proposed a 50:50 ratio to the universities during a retreat in 2017, but the proposal was rejected adding that the NUC then adopted a 70:30 NUC university ratio for the curriculum contents during the comprehensive curriculum review.
Saliu emphasized that the NUC component of the curriculum was determined by Nigerian academics, with the commission only coordinating the process.
