Students of the Bayelsa State owned university, Niger Delta University (NDU), Ammassoma, are gripped by uncertainty over the withdrawal of accreditation of key courses in the university by the National Universities Commssion (NUC).
According to the Students, who spoke with LEADERSHIP, accreditation for seven key courses of study, including Law, has been withdrawn by the NUC.
LEADERSHIP gathered that the NUC also placed 20 other programmes of the university on interim accreditation during its last accreditation exercise.
It was also gathered that the university put forward 31 courses for accreditation but the NUC approved only four for full accreditation.
There are fears that the programmes under probation may still be denied accreditation in the next accreditation exercise slated for September and October this year if the conditions for full accreditation are not met.
Reasons given for the non-accreditation of the courses, sources hinted, include inadequate teaching staff, especially professors, PhD holders and senior lecturers.
Others were inadequate library facilities, laboratory, lecture buildings and poor power supply.
While students currently studying the non-accredited programmes will continue with their studies, new students will not be offered admission pending the accreditation by NUC.
Reacting to the development, the Chairman of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), NDU chapter, Beke Sese, said the non-accreditation of the affected courses was a justification of poor funding of universities for which ASUU had been on strike.
Sese stated in an interview on Wednesday that NDU had remained a “glorified secondary school” ten years after it was established.
“Poor funding of universities has been the issue. This is what ASUU has been emphasising over the years. We’ve been pointing this out even in the current national strike action”, Sese said.
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the university, Domo Alagoa, said he would not react on the matter over the telephone phone.
