OAU’s Law, Dentistry, Others Lose Accreditation

The National Universities Commission has withdrawn the accreditations of five programmes offered by the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, over the school’s failure to meet the required standards, CAMPUS REPORTER has confirmed.

Spokespersons for the university, the NUC and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board confirmed the development, which affects courses the school’s Law, Botany, Fine Arts, Dentistry and Medical Rehabilitation programmes to PREMIUM TIMES separately between Friday and Saturday.

Consequently, JAMB has advised candidates seeking admissions to study the affected courses at Ife to either change their courses or institutions.

“Your first choice course did not receive accreditation. Login to your profile and change course/institution,” read a short message distributed to the concerned applicants by JAMB.

We sighted the text. A spokesperson for JAMB through the official telephone number provided on the Board’s website confirmed the sending of the text to the concerned applicants.

“The aspirants should go on and change,” the spokesperson said.

The NUC, reacting the same way as did JAMB, confirmed the axe that hit the OAU.

This has triggered criticisms of the school from parents and candidates.

A parent, Suliyat Aina, said she is now confused as she does not want her son who wants to study Botany, now suspended, to school outside Ile-Ife where the family resides due to the boy’s age.

A candidate, Segun Olukoya said: “I wrote UTME in 2016, scored 240 but didn’t get Law, I wrote last year, scored 278 but the law didn’t work out and now that I scored 315 in UTME, the bad news that OAU is not accredited for the law came up.

“It is a sad thing for the leadership of the faculty and indeed the university at large. Changing my course is again not my wish. If I have wanted to study English, I will have voluntarily chose that during JAMB registration.”

Many students currently studying the affected courses said the NUC’s action was due to the lack of adequate resources for teaching and learning.

The president of the students of the Faculty of Law, Adedigba Daniel said his programme had truly lost its accreditation but enthused that authorities would work to put things in order as soon as possible.

OAU’s spokesperson, Abiodun Olanrewaju said that the university “will sort it out.”

In 2006, OAU lost accreditation of its Law degree and had to force the students in Level 1 and candidates that year to go study other courses such as English Language and History.