Why UNICAL Is Yet To Register Engineering Courses – VC

By Ayodele Oni

University of Calabar, (UNICAL) and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, (COREN) have disagreed over accreditation of some engineering courses at the University.

The Vice Chancellor of UNICAL, Prof Florence Banku-Obi,  dismissed  claims by COREN, that UNICAL’s engineering courses were not accredited by its professional body.

Banku-Obi told an online medium on Saturday that UNICAL’s Engineering courses are just in their third year, getting ready for the National University Commission’s, (NUC) accreditation in November 2023.

According to the Vice-Chancellor, when COREN approached her for the Engineering course accreditation, she told the body to hold on until the institution is through with NUC accreditation slated for November/December.

Prof Banku-Obi pointed out that COREN came to UNICAL for engineering results verification, which the institution passed, noting that UNICAL is presently preparing for the NUC accreditation.

She said the reason she objected to COREN accreditation before NUC was because UNICAL is being supervised by NUC and not COREN.

“I said when NUC okays our engineering, then COREN can come for their accreditation.

“If COREN comes for accreditation and says we have passed and NUC comes later and says we have failed, NUC will stop us from running the programme. We must first get NUC accreditation before we can welcome COREN to our school.

“COREN are not even sincere to themselves for saying UNICAL engineering course is not accredited.

“Our engineering programme is a new programme which attracts NUC verifications and it is only due for accreditation this year.

“Are we under COREN? We are running an engineering degree. If they want to licence their people, when we graduate them, they can do so.

“We have not graduated anybody. We have engineering students who are in their third year. NUC is coming for the first accreditation by November/December 2023.”