Qosim Suleiman
ASUU rejected the CCMAS prepared by NUC, describing it as usurpation of the powers of the university senate and imposition.
Osodeke said the NUC pre-packaged 70% CCMAS contents were being imposed on the Nigerian University System (NUS), adding that university Senates, who are statutorily responsible for academic programme development, were left to work on only 30%.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has criticised the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) recently introduced by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
Based on the law establishing it, the university regulatory
agency is empowered by Section 10(1) of the Education (National Minimum
Standards and Establishment of Institutions) Act, Cap E3, Laws of the
Federation of Nigeria 2004, to set the minimum standards for all universities
and other degree awarding institutions in Nigeria, and conduct the
accreditation of their degrees and other academic awards.
However, in what it described as an imposition, ASUU said
NUC failed to carry along relevant organs of the university system. It said the
new benchmark was imposed on the institutions and called for an urgent review.
The union further described NUC’s action as an “aberration
to the Nigerian University System.”
CCMAS
In 2022, NUC said it already developed the CCMAS to replace
the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) –the curriculum guide for
Nigerian universities, which had been in use since 2007.
The CCMAS also expanded BMAS from 12 to 17 disciplines to
reposition the system to reflect the realities of the 21st century.
According to the regulatory body, developing the CCMAS
involved a blend of academic experts, academies, government (represented by
NUC), professional bodies and the private sector, represented by the Nigerian
Economic Summit Group (NESG).
NUC said the drafts were presented to all critical
stakeholders, including the academic units in the universities.
“In order to enrich the draft documents, copies of each
discipline were forwarded to all critical stakeholders, including the relevant
academic units in Nigerian universities, the private sector, professional
bodies and the academies for their comments and input,” NUC wrote on the CCMAs
webpage.
“These inputs, along with the curriculum of programmes
obtained from some foreign and renowned universities, served as major working
materials for the various panels constituted for that purpose.”
NUC added that CCMAS would make up 70 per cent of the
curriculum while the university decides what to include in the remaining 30 per
cent.
Rejection
In a statement issued on Friday and signed by its President,
Emmanuel Osodeke, a professor of Soil Science, noted that NUC should accept
proposed innovations from the universities “instead of the top-to-bottom model
used for the CCMAS.”
The statement reads in part, “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.
ASUU said the process adopted by NUC amounts to encroaching
on the powers of the Senate of universities.
“It is inexplicable that the National Universities
Commission’s (NUC) pre-packaged 70 per cent CCMAS contents are being imposed on
the Nigerian University System (NUS), leaving university Senates, which are
statutorily responsible for academic programme development, to work on only 30
per cent,” the union said.
The union added that while it understands that setting
academic standards and assuring quality in the system is within the remit of
the NUC, “the process of generating the standard is as important (if not more
important) than what is produced as ‘minimum standards”.
Inadequacies
The inadequacies of the CCMAS, according to ASUU, have
resulted in dissatisfaction among university administrators, whom it said are
shying away from making their reservations public.
ASUU wrote: “However, some university Senates did not hide
their displeasure with the ongoing efforts to impose CCMAS on Nigerian
universities by the NUC. For instance, at the Special Meeting of the University
of Ibadan (UI) Senate held on 16th June 2023, it was observed that “the ratio
of 70 to 30 per cent recommended does not permit the exhibition of the
uniqueness of disciplines across institutions”.
“Based on this and other observations, the UI Senate decided
that submissions made by various departments, reflecting the desirable
contents, be submitted to the NUC”.
The union also listed inadequacies of the CCMAS, including
the failure of the NUC to inform universities of the planned revision of the
BMAS, “making university Senates to become mere spectators in their own
affairs.”
It added that “many important components of university
academic programmes were completely phased out in the new 70% CCMAS and the 30%
“local content” is insufficient to remedy the lacunae.”
“For example, there are no Chemistry courses for students of
B. Sc. Physics. Apart from Departmental and General Studies (GES/GST) courses,
the 70% CCMAS has left out all other Faculty or University courses like
Engineering Mathematics for Engineering students, Statistics for Science
students, Philosophy and Sociology of Education courses for education students,
etc. Almost all departments reported one major deficiency or the other in the
CCMAS.
It added that the CCMAS has watered down the standards in
some BMAS courses as their equivalents in the 70 per cent CCMAS were poorly
developed.
It added: “A typical example is Biochemistry, where courses
at the 300 and 400 levels were weakened and made superficial, bereft of
contemporary trends.
“Unbundling some programmes as contained in the 70% CCMAS
would render graduates of such programmes limited, inadequate, and subsequently
unemployable in the sectors that would ordinarily want to engage their
services.
“For example, the unbundling of the Mass Communication or
Communication Studies would give products of the programme narrow
specialisations. The “specialisation” idea in the CCMAS was poorly conceived,
making multi-disciplinary understanding impossible in this age of the
interconnectedness of things.
Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership
with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging
journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.
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