NAB to shake TEIs soon with academic credential audit

The National Accreditation Board’s decision to audit credentials of all academic staff in tertiary education institutions (TEIs) is expected to begin soon, the B&FT has gathered.

The proliferation of tertiary institutions in the country and the increasing demand for additional qualifications have led some people to use dubious means of obtaining degrees in order to continuously enjoy salaries, allowances, among others.

It is as a result of this development that the NAB has decided to begin a nationwide audit of academic staff’s credentials in the various tertiary institutions to saniistise the sector.

The move by the NAB, however, has come at a time there when is a shortage of lecturers in the various TEIs – as the ratio of academic population to student population is six times less than the required internationally acceptable student-to-teacher ratio in all disciplines.

Currently, there are 12,836 academic staff teaching more than 400,000 students in the 164 tertiary education institutions.

The teaching requirement for every university per standards of the NCTE is a doctorate degree, and all the public universities’ lecturers have been instructed to upgrade their qualification to a minimum of doctorate degree within the next five years.

Within the 12,836 academic staff in the country’s TEIs, there are 593 Prof./ Assoc. Prof./Principal Lecturers; 1,675 senior lecturers, 5,022 lecturers; 910 assistant lecturers and 600 tutors, making a total of 8,800 full-time academic staff. The remaining 4,036 are all part-time teaching staff.

The NAB has said it will also develop a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) for all academic qualifications in the country.

When completed, NQF will provide the parameters to comprehensively determine the equivalences of certificates and what it takes to earn a certain qualification.

According to the board, one of the pillars of academic mobility is the development of a national qualifications framework, a credit transfer system and mutual recognition of qualifications; adding that “qualification frameworks have become a global phenomenon and a necessity for sustainable quality in the increasingly globalised education environment. Qualifications are indeed the medium of exchange on the labour market”.