NCHE speaks in tongues on expired programmes

The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) has broken its silence over the saga of universities offering unaccredited programmes it calls “expired”, and given affected institutions six months to put their acts together.

It also noted that qualifications obtained in all previously accredited courses are valid, but did not explain how that is so if the programme had not been duly re-accredited in line with quality assurance requirements as the law. 

Executive Director Prof Mary Okwakol in a statement issued following a meeting of the Council’s top management, noted that:

“NCHE wishes to assure the public and all stakeholders around the world that qualifications of graduates on programmes that have received prior accreditation, in accordance with the NCHE minimum standards and regulations by NCHE, are valid.”

She, however, tasked institutions named in running unaccredited or expired “programmes … for re-assessment as soon as possible” and in any case before November 30.

NCHE and individual universities have been pushed to a corner of bother after the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom declined to admit an alumna of Makerere University, who had studied a Bachelor of Biomedical Laboratory Technology, to pursue an advanced degree on ground that her initial qualification was in a programme  was in an “expired” academic programme.

More victims have since spoken to this newspaper about their predicament, with our computations based on NCHE listing showing up to 2,260 across 47 universities and dozens of tertiary institutions expired eight to a dozen years ago, raising questions as to why they were still being taught.

The Universities and Other Tertiary Institution’s Act, 2001, requires accredited higher certificate, diploma and bacherlor’s and master’s degree programmes to be reviewed and reaccredited every five years while doctoral programmes have to be re-evaluated every decade.

Heads of varsities on Monday argued that they are in good standing with the law and the Council information contained inaccuracies, leading to national anxiety among students, alumni and households.

The vice chancellors in interviews with this newspaper said the procedure for re-accreditation of programmes is cumbersome and expensive and that the law does not explicitly provide that a previously accredited academic programme expires when under review or unaccredited. 

In her statement, Prof Okwakol noted that the qualification of students enrolled on the expired programmes are recognised since they were accredited in the first instance.

The Executive Director said they are investigating claims that foreign universities were turning away some Ugandans applying for graduate studies.

“We are investigating these two cases, with the aim of assisting them. But we have not been provided with information by them. We are only reading about them from social media,” she said in an interview with this newspaper, adding, “Not everything we read on social media is authentic. I encourage them to come forward with evidence so they can be assisted.”

Earlier, some executives of universities bounced blames for the mess in Uganda’s higher education to NCHE, the regulator, accusing it of delaying accreditation.

The Vice Chancellor for Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Prof Celestino Obua, among others, said the Council, and not his institution, should be held responsible.

Prof Okwakol yesterday disagreed, passing the buck back to the institutions that she said under the law hold the primary responsibility to ensure they admit students and teach only accredited programmes.

“Expiry of accreditation, as reflected on the NCHE website, means that the programme needs re-assessment to establish whether the key aspects upon which accreditation was granted are still in place. No programme will receive this label once institutions conform to the requirements for re-assessment,” she observed in her written statement issued yesterday.

The law and NCHE’s defence

Section 5(d) (ii) of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act 201 mandates NCHE to accredit academic and professional programmes of those institutions, in consultation with professional associations and regulatory bodies. The process of accreditation is guided by a prescribed set of Quality Assurance capacity indicators specified in the NCHE Quality Assurance Regulatory Framework, including; infrastructure and human resources available for implementing a programme, among others. The NCHE, in addition, assesses the quality and relevance of the programme and its learning outcomes as well as the teaching and learning methods. Institutions are required to re-submit programmes for reassessment every 5 years (for master’s, bachelor’s, diplomas and higher education certificates) and every decade years for doctoral programmes.

Extracted from NCHE statement