JUST IN: ASUU REJECTS NUC'S CURRICULUM

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The Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards created by the National Universities Commission have been rejected by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

The union described it as nightmare-like, a threat to the standard of higher education, and a diminution of the authority of the university senate at universities in Nigeria.

According to a statement released on Friday and signed by Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, national president of ASUU, it was absurd that the Nigerian University System was being forced to adopt prepackaged CCMAS content comprising 70% of its total content, while university Senates—who are formally in charge of developing academic programs—were only given 30% to work with.

It emphasized that there were rising concerns regarding the CCMAS documents’ major flaws and obvious weaknesses.

“ASUU is not unaware that setting academic standards and assuring quality in the NUS is within the remit of the NUC. Section 10(1) of the Education (National Minimum Standards and Establishment of Institutions) Act, Cap E3, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, enjoins the NUC to lay down the minimum standards for all universities and other degree awarding institutions in the Federation and conduct the accreditation of their degrees and other academic awards.

“However, the process of generating the standard is as important (if not more important) than what is produced as “minimum standards”.

“In this instance, the NUC has recently, through some hazy procedures, churned out CCMAS documents containing 70% curricular contents in 17 academic fields with little or no input from the universities. The academic disciplines covered are (i) Administration and Management, (ii) Agriculture, (iii) Allied Health Sciences, (iv) Architecture, (v) Arts, (vi) Basic Medical Sciences, (vii) Computing, (viii) Communication and Media Studies, (ix) Education, (x) Engineering and Technology, (xi) Environmental Sciences, (xii) Law, (xiii) Medicine and Dentistry, (xiv) Pharmaceutical Science, (xv) Sciences, (xvi) Social Sciences, and (xvii) Veterinary Medicine,” it read partly.

It emphasized that despite their dissatisfaction, many university administrators were holding back on publicly criticizing CCMAS.

However, the statement showed that certain university Senates were open about their discontent with the NUC’s continuous attempts to impose CCMAS on Nigerian universities.

It read, “The CCMAS is a nightmarish model of curriculum reengineering. It is an aberration to the Nigerian University System. The CCMAS documents are flawed both in process and in content. There is no basis for the 70% “untouchable CCMAS,” which cannot stand the test of critical scrutiny of university Senates.”

However, it suggested that “NUC should encourage universities, as currently being done by the University of Ibadan, to propose innovations for the review of their programmes. Proposals from across universities should then be sieved and synthesised by more competent expert teams to review the existing BMAS documents and/or create new ones as appropriate.

“The difference here is the bottom-up approach, unlike the top-bottom or take-it-or-leave-it model of the CCMAS.”