QUALITY ASSURANCE IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES COMMISSION

Quality Assurance in Universities and other Higher Institutions has become a global issue. There has been a growing interest on the part of governments around the world that universities in their countries provide quality education to their students. To this end, varying agencies and commissions have been established to assure quality education. In Nigeria, the National Universities Commission (NUC) is charged with this responsibility. This paper, therefore, examines the role of this commission in quality assurance in Nigerian universities. Quality assurance is the concern that certain accepted criteria of minimum standards of quality should be achieved in the production of goods and services. it is a regulatory mechanism focusing on accountability and improvement, thus, establishing confidence in stakeholders that the inputs, processes and output of educational system fulfill the expectations or measure up to minimum standards. In the university system, quality assurance is the guaranty of confidence and certainty that standards and quality of a programme run by the university are being maintained and enhanced. In Nigeria, two basic mechanisms are used to ensure quality in universities. These are the internal and external mechanisms. Internal mechanism is the internal framework which involves the process of evaluation and promotion of quality within each university. The external mechanism centers on the activities of the NUC as a regulatory body to supervise the development and academic activities of universities in Nigeria. These involves among other things, establishment of minimum academic standards and accreditation of academic programmes. Thus this paper focuses on the meaning of quality assurance, minimum academic standards for universities, quality assurance mechanisms including accreditation of academic programmes and assessment of educational quality. The challenges of Quality assurance in Nigerian universities will be discussed and recommendations proffered.