ASUU Rejects NUC’s Curriculum

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has rejected the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) presented by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

ASUU has labelled the curriculum as a nightmarish and dangerous move that undermines the quality of university education and erodes the authority of university Senates in Nigerian institutions.

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In a statement issued by ASUU’s national president, Emmanuel Osodeke, on Friday, it was highlighted that the NUC’s pre-packaged CCMAS contents, constituting 70% of the curriculum, were being enforced upon the Nigerian University System. This left university Senates, which are responsible for academic program development, with a mere 30% involvement.

ASUU expressed deep concerns regarding the significant deficiencies and inadequacies present in the CCMAS documents. The union emphasised that while the NUC is responsible for setting academic standards and ensuring quality in the Nigerian University System, the process of formulating these standards is equally crucial. However, the NUC had recently released CCMAS documents without sufficient input from the universities, following ambiguous procedures.

The CCMAS covers 17 academic fields, including Administration and Management, Agriculture, Allied Health Sciences, Architecture, Arts, Basic Medical Sciences, Computing, Communication and Media Studies, Education, Engineering and Technology, Environmental Sciences, Law, Medicine and Dentistry, Pharmaceutical Science, Sciences, Social Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine.

“The CCMAS is a nightmarish model of curriculum reengineering. It is an aberration to the Nigerian University System. The CCMAS documents are flawed both in process and in content. There is no basis for the 70% “untouchable CCMAS,” which cannot stand the test of critical scrutiny of university Senates,” it said.

ASUU deemed the CCMAS as a flawed and aberrant model of curriculum reengineering, asserting that the 70% “untouchable CCMAS” lacks a solid foundation and fails under the scrutiny of university Senates.

ASUU suggested that the “NUC should encourage universities, as currently being done by the University of Ibadan, to propose innovations for the review of their programmes. Proposals from across universities should then be sieved and synthesised by more competent expert teams to review the existing BMAS documents and/or create new ones as appropriate. The difference here is the bottom-up approach, unlike the top-bottom or take-it-or-leave-it model of the CCMAS.”