Dean criticises scrapping of non-agricultural courses in Agric varsity

The Board of College of Management Sciences (COLMAS), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) in Abia, has criticised the Federal Government’s policy scrapping non-agriculture courses in the university.

The Dean of the college, Prof John Ihendinihu, stated the school’s position in Umuahia on Thursday.

Ihendinihu said that all the COLMAS courses received the approval of the National Universities Commission (NUC) before they were introduced by the university.

He said that the directive was a breach of the Federal Universities of Agriculture Act CAP FOR CAN 2010, which established the three Federal Universities of Agriculture in Nigeria.

According to him, the law stipulates a tripod mandate of teaching, research and extension in agriculture and related/allied disciplines in the universities.

Ihendinihu said that the university established six colleges for core agricultural programmes and six complementary colleges to provide foundational courses in related/allied disciplines in line with the law.

The complementary colleges are College of Physical and Applied Sciences, College of National and Applies Sciences, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, COLMAS, Colleges of Education and General and Communication Studies, he said.

The dean said that the colleges awarded first degrees, Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees in addition to providing support teaching and research services for the core agricultural programmes.

He urged the Federal Government and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to do a proper interpretation of the law that set up the affected universities.

“It is imperative to interpret allied/related disciplines in the context of legal mandate of the Federal Universities of Agriculture to mean all disciplines, which offer foundational complementary teaching and research opportunities to core agricultural programmes without discrimination,” he said.

Ihendinihu said that it was discriminatory that only management science courses were closed, while courses in other complementary colleges were allowed to continue.

He said that resource verification was carried out on Agribusiness and Financial Management programme, which had options in Accounting, Banking and Finance, Marketing, Agribusiness and Management.

The dean explained that the university got the NUCs approval on April 15, 2008 to run B.Sc Agribusiness courses and Financial Management.

Ihendinihu said that on Feb. 12, 2015, the commission also gave approval to the university to establish six full-time B.Sc programmes in Accounting, Marketing, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, Entrepreneurial Studies and Economics.

He said that in November 2015, the university, again, got the commission’s full accreditation for Master’s and PhD programmes in Accounting, Banking and Finance, Marketing and Business Administration.

“It should, therefore, be noted that MOUAU is not running unapproved programmes in COLMAS and that all its B.Sc programmes were resourced, verified and approved by the NUC.

“The M.Sc and PhD programmes offered in COLMAS are enjoying accredited status of the NUC,” Ihendonihu said.

He described the policy by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as `tantamount to policy summersaults and inconsistency’.

He expressed regret that already the ministry had written to the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to exclude the blacklisted programmes from its brochure for the upcoming examination.

Ihendinihu appealed to the Abia Government as well as state and national assemblies to prevail on the Federal Government to reverse the policy.

He said that MOUAU was the only Federal Government tertiary institution in Abia and that shutting the programmes would further limit the chances of candidates from the state seeking admission to the university.