*Commends management, staff for dedication
*Tasks TetFund on developing staff of private university
By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
The founder/Pro Chancellor of Greenfield University (GFU), Kaduna, Engineer Simon Nwakacha has said that the periodic accreditation exercise carried out by the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC) is a plus for the country, as it ensures all round education development.
He expressed this while interacting with journalists yesterday, November 28, on the sidelines of a visiting NUC team who were at the Greenfield University City Campus Kudenda for accreditation.
“I want to commend the NUC team for accreditation process, it is boosting quality of education in Nigeria.
“I am quite happy with the process. It’s one thing that is helping to promote education. I wish to commend NUC management and staff for the periodic exercise,” he said.
According to him, if not for the periodic exercise by NUC, a lot of universities would have gone far beyond standards, if left unsupervised.
“We have seen it, anytime NUC is coming around for accreditation, people run around to ensure everything is on order,” he said.
He explained that the courses the were there to accredit, include cyber security, biotechnology, accountancy, criminology, security studies, international relations and information technology.
“Accreditation is very critical for enrolment into universities and also a requirement for graduates to embark on the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). It is in the interest of all universities to get all their programmes accredited,” he advised.
According to the Pro Chancellor, Greenfield University plans to get more courses to their programmes and subject those courses to accreditation.
He disclosed that such courses include, law and a host of others.
Speaking further on the need to develop tertiary education in Nigeria, Engineer Nwakacha made a passionate appeal to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund) to be magnanimous in giving equal opportunities for training of lecturers to both private and public universities.
“We also want to ask that the operations of Tetfund is widened to afford equal number of public and private universities.
“If a staff is trained, Nigeria gains, because the staff may move from private to public university, hence Nigeria gains.
“As new and new private universities are set up, there will be pressure on staff of public institutions, because they go to hire professors from existing. So TetFund should develop more staff to post graduate level, it will help the system. Though they are doing the training, more should be done,” he said.
He argued that considering the fact that number of private universities would soon double that of public, there is need for more training to cover more staff of private universities.
“Let development of staff at post graduate level, be extended to all private universities,” he appealed.
