The Chairman of the Board of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, on Thursday affirmed that conflicting regulatory demands by the NUC and professional regulatory bodies were imposing huge and avoidable costs on Nigerian universities and students.
Ogundipe stated this while delivering the 16th convocation lecture of Osun State University (UNIOSUN), Osogbo.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Coping With Double Oversight: Harmonising the NUC and Professional Bodies for a Sustainable University System,’ the former UNILAG vice-chancellor said overlapping regulatory responsibilities had become a major challenge to the effective administration of university education in Nigeria.
He maintained that while professional regulatory bodies had important roles to play in ensuring professional standards, they should not usurp the statutory responsibilities of the NUC, particularly in matters concerning the admission of students into universities.
According to him, the NUC remains the statutory authority responsible for determining whether universities can admit students, stressing that professional councils should operate within clearly defined jurisdictional boundaries.
Ogundipe explained that the NUC operates alongside several professional regulatory bodies, including the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, the Council of Legal Education, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
He said the situation had become increasingly complex because the different regulatory agencies operated under separate laws, accreditation requirements and professional standards, sometimes resulting in conflicting directives to universities.
The academic don, however, stressed that the solution was not to weaken regulation, but to make it more coherent, predictable and transparent, noting that quality assurance must remain central to the university system.
‘Nigeria does not need less regulation of university education; it needs better regulation. Quality assurance must remain non-negotiable,’ he said.
Ogundipe identified six major areas of friction between the NUC and professional bodies, including curriculum ownership, accreditation timelines and costs, differences between minimum university standards and professional standards, institutional capacity, resistance to new universities, and challenges associated with professional registration after the National Youth Service Corps scheme.
He also identified inadequate data as another major weakness in the regulatory system, warning that poor coordination among regulators could affect institutional planning, academic staffing, students and public confidence in the university system.
The NUC board chairman further faulted attempts by professional bodies to determine qualifications for academic positions in universities, arguing that the university system must retain responsibility for academic appointments while professional councils focused on standards within their respective professions.
He said the country also needed to address the gap between its population and the number of universities available to provide access to tertiary education, while ensuring that expansion did not compromise quality.
To resolve the challenges, Ogundipe proposed a five-pillar framework comprising clear legislative and policy boundaries between regulators, a permanent national consultative mechanism, harmonised accreditation procedures, student-protective developmental accreditation and a shared national regulatory information platform.
He also called for a national task group, unified regulatory matrices, coordinated accreditation pilots, student-protection protocols, improved regulatory intelligence and collective advocacy as part of measures to implement the proposed reforms.
Ogundipe disclosed that the NUC would require universities to update their institutional data annually as part of efforts to tackle the problem of academic staff working simultaneously in multiple institutions, commonly referred to as moonlighting.
He urged universities to take greater responsibility for maintaining academic standards, while advising graduating students to familiarise themselves with the regulatory requirements governing their professions and to register with the relevant professional bodies.
Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor of UNIOSUN, Professor Odunayo Clement Adebooye, said the institution had recorded significant growth in its academic programmes, research activities and postgraduate education.
Adebooye disclosed that the university had increased its undergraduate academic programmes from 66 in 2022 to 128, while its postgraduate programmes had risen from 99 to 299 within the same period.
He added that the university had secured 175 international research grants, describing the development as evidence of growing research capacity and international engagement.
The vice-chancellor said the stability and growth recorded by the university were partly attributable to the character of successive administrations in Osun State, while describing convocation lectures as important platforms for generating ideas capable of influencing public policy.