By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), has become a provisional signatory of Washington Accord(WA) .
The Council’s President Engr. Sadiq Abubakar,made this known to Journalists during a press briefing in Lagos recently,saying that the council became a full member June 14 2023, making Nigerian the 2nd African member of the Accord.
“Currently 21 countries are in the WA, including UK, USA, Germany, Canada, Japan, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, Hongkong, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Switzerland, South-Africa,among others”.
He explained that “COREN expressed interest in becoming a member of the W.A. in 2018 and officially submitted its application in 2019, which could not receive the minimum required number of votes from other Signatories.
Meanwhile, he said there were requirements necessary to be met before admission, which are:”Conformation of Engineering Education Curriculum to Outcome-Based Education (OBE),
Sufficient evidence of the Independence of the Accreditation Body from Government or external influence,
Sufficient evidence of financial capacity of the Accreditation Body among others among others.
He also said that, “There were measurable outcomes to be evaluated for all engineering programmes in Nigerian Universities were henceforth based on the adopted Objectives of the Washington Accord (W.A ).
According to him, In pursuant to achieving this goal, COREN organized and hosted the Train-the-Trainers Workshops on Outcome-Based Education for University Implementors in all six (6) geo-political zones of the federation where five hundred and forty-five (545) individuals viduals were trained.
The Outcome-Based Assessment (OBA) Programme Evaluators Workshop was also organized and held in two (2) locations where a total of three hundred and seven (307) OBA Programme Evaluators were trained among others .
For far, a total of twelve (12) Engineering programmes have been accredited under the OBE system and counting.
The president noted that after series of presentations made by the Nigerian delegation and interactions with the members of the WA at the meeting at Taiwan including COREN’s Road Map for the attainment of the Full Signatory Status and having satisfactorily met all requirements.
He said this success story can never be complete without mentioning the immense support and professional guidance of COREN’s nominators – Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) and Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
