The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has rejected the National Universities Council’s (NUC) redesigned Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) for undergraduate courses.
ASUU maintained that the curriculum was a nightmare, a threat to quality university education, and a weakening of the powers of the Nigerian university senate.
In a statement signed by the National President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke on Friday, the union explained that it was inexplicable that 70 per cent of the content of the NUC-packaged CCMAS was imposed on the Nigerian university system, adding that the university senate was the statutory body responsible.
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It highlighted growing concerns about the many errors and serious deficiencies in the CCMAS documentation.
The statement partly read:
“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.”
According to ASUU, many university administrators, while disaffected, avoided public comment on CCMAS.
However, the statement revealed that some in the university senate did not hide their displeasure over the ongoing implementation of CCMAS by the NUC in Nigerian universities.
The statement added:
“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.
“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.”
