NUC dismisses claims on abolition of catchment area for admissions

The Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Professor Abubakar Rasheed has dismissed claims in some quarters that the Federal Government has abolished catchment area as part of criteria for admission into Nigerian universities.

He also confirmed reports that there were fake professors in Nigerian universities as unearthed during recent verification exercise done by the Commission.

Rasheed spoke on Monday in Abuja at a media parley with members of Education Correspondents Association of Nigeria (ECAN) on activities of the Commission in the last few years.

He said there had been massive reforms the Commission initiated in the last three years,  including curriculum reengineering, the introduction of new programmes, unbundling of some programmes, research and innovation among others, all aimed at overhauling the Nigerian University System to bring it to 21st-century requirement.

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Some of the courses unbundled include Mass Communication that has been split into seven programmes in agriculture.

He said: “It is absolutely untrue that the Federal Government has abrogated the catchment area as part of the criteria for admission into Nigerian universities”.

He, however, expressed concern that in the era of internationalisation of university education, a demographics of the Nigerian universities revealed a preponderance of over localisation and over indigenisation, with only a handful of universities having a semblance of national institutions in terms of the national spread of their staff and students population.

According to him, it was in an effort to improve the national and international output of the universities that President Muhammadu Buhari directed that universities should ensure national spread by ensuring that all local governments and states are represented in the admission exercise.

On the reports of over 100 fake professors in Nigerian universities, the NUC boss confirmed that there were fake professors in the system but could not attach a specific figure to his claims, saying the number could be more or less than the 100.

He said: “As part of the measures at repositioning our universities, the NUC through its STRADCOM recently verified and published a full directory of professors in the Nigerian University System.

“In the process of validating the submissions, university senates have in some cases uncovered that quite a number of professors are either fake or are yet to mature- a Reader is not a full professor,” he said.

He disclosed that there are about 61,000 lecturers teaching in Nigerian universities while only about 9,000 of them are professors.

Rasheed also expressed worry over the upsurge of illegal degree-awarding institutions, saying the Commission is compiling a comprehensive list of such illegal universities and working with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to ensure that graduates of such institutions and other mushroom universities from neighbouring countries are not mobilised for the one-year mandatory service.

He said the Commission has continued to deliver on its mandate with diligent, especially accreditation of programmes offered by the universities in the country.

He disclosed that over 1,600 panels comprising about 4,00 professors selected from different universities across the country, were dispatched in groups to undertake the accreditation of programs in the institutions.

While stressing on the integrity of the exercise, Rasheed disclosed that a staff of the Commission was recently sanctioned for demanding bribe from a Vice-Chancellor during accreditation visit.

He also reiterated that Post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) has not been scrapped, saying it was good for the universities to make input on the selection of candidates they want to admit considering the autonomy granted the institutions.

He, however, said the aim of most of the institution was to generate revenue and that the Federal Government has allowed them to charge N2,000 per candidate, warning that any institution that charges more than that would be sanctioned.