FG addresses quality assurance in higher education

Federal Government on Tuesday said it was determined to ensure that issues bothering on quality assurance in the nation’s higher education were addressed for it to meet global demands, in a determined move to raise the nation’s education standard.

Hindatu Abdullahi, permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, made the disclosure at a workshop on ‘Strengthening Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa to Meet Regional and global Challenges.’

According to her, the Federal Government has through the National Universities Commission (NUC) encouraged universities to set up Quality Assurance Units or directorates that will promote efficient internal quality assurance in the system.

On external assurance mechanism, the permanent secretary said: “The National Universities Commission has, over the years, developed a robust quality assurance system for the Nigerian university system, which has been internationally recognised.”

Analysts believe that quality assurance in the nation’s university system can solve the dwindling fortunes of the nation’s education sector, which has been poorly rated in global education ranking.

Meanwhile, the European ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Michel Arrion, said the EU and the African Union had been working out modalities to ensure that Africa could deepen skills in sciences, information technology, engineering in solving lots of Africa’s problems and make their educational system compete globally.

“We are aware that the EU template may not be the recipe for numerous African challenges, but it could offer some solutions,“ he said.