QUALITY ASSURANCE IMPERATIVES: THE COVENANT UNIVERSITY MODEL

Quality assurance is imperative for a university to deliver on its basic functions of teaching, research and community service. Ranking of universities is based on measurable parameters that are quality-defined. Quality Assurance is essential and serves as the fulcrum of a university’s quality system management and enhancement. In Covenant University, the Coordinator, Quality Assurance is responsible to the Vice-Chancellor through the Director, Academic Planning Unit. Quality Assurance and Academic Standards Committees are constituted at all academic levels to perform advisory, supervisory and oversight functions. The Quality Assurance and Academic Standards (QA & AS) Committee carries out mock resource verification visits to proposed programmes and mock accreditation visits to undergraduate and postgraduate programmes that are due for accreditation by National Universities Commission (NUC) and professional bodies. QA & AS Committees monitor teaching and learning facilities in the university. Quality Assurance Officers visit classrooms, lecture halls, laboratories and studios on a daily basis to monitor lecture attendance by lecturers and students, availability and workability of all teaching aids, and the conduciveness of the learning environment. Inventory of all teaching and learning resources in the University is taken. As part of our learning culture, lecture attendance by faculty and students is compulsory as students must obtain at least 75% lecture attendance before they can be legible to write any examination. A lecture monitoring form is designed to capture these details. Students are given opportunity to evaluate the teaching efficiencies of their lecturers and the lecturers are given their scoring charts after the evaluation. The Covenant University model has been effective due to the cooperation of the stakeholders of the university.