Bayelsa State Governor, Hon. Seriake Dickson, has applauded the leadership of the state-owned Niger Delta University, NDU on its achievements, including securing full accreditation for 10 of its academic programmes, following the release of N200 million by the state government for the purpose.
Dickson stated this when the Acting Vice Chancellor of the NDU, Prof. Samuel Edoumiekumo presented the 2017 May/June National University Commission, NUC, Accreditation report at the Executive Council Chambers of Goverment House, Yenagoa.
While assuring the NDU of the government’s support to achieve academic excellence, the Governor directed Prof. Edoumiekumo to liaise with the state Ministry of Education for the approval of the balance of N21 million out of the N221 earlier approved for the institution.
His words: “This government will spare no effort and resources in working with the university team in ensuring that NDU becomes one of the best universities in the country.”
Dickson, who urged Bayelsa students seeking admission into universities to consider NDU, describing it as a first class tertiary institution, which has the full backing of the state government.
Presenting the report, Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof Samuel Edoumiekumo, said it was the first time in the history of the NDU that it has achieved such a feat in the accreditation of its programmes.
He listed Law, Medical Laboratory Science and Mechanical Engineering as some of the programmes that were accredited, but, however, noted that, accreditation was denied for Pure and Applied Chemistry, Computer Science and Mathematics due to lack of qualified staff.
Prof Edoumiekumo also said the university had already written to the NUC to make inputs in the area of qualified staff to fill the existing vacancies and gave a breakdown of the expenditure of the N200m.
In an interview, the Acting Vice Chancellor said, as against the general 120 cut-off mark for universities, the NDU has pegged 150 as its cut-off, adding that the move was aimed at raising NDU’s educational standard and competitiveness.
