The University of Calabar (UNICAL) has refuted alleged claims by the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) in some national dailies on the status of engineering courses in the institution.
The refutation was contained in a statement issued by the Registrar of UNICAL, Mr Gabriel Egbe on behalf of the university’s management and made available to journalists on Tuesday.
The statement notes that the title of the alleged publication credited to COREN was “Get Properly Accredited or Risk Blacklisting, Engineering Council warns UNICAL, Adamawa Varsity.”
While noting that the publication was malicious, Egbe wondered why COREN which claimed to be statutorily saddled with the responsibility of ensuring professional accreditation of Engineering programmes in Nigerian Universities, should be working very hard in tarnishing the image of the University.
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According to him, when this agitation of COREN last came up, the professional body was duly informed that in line with the established procedure, the National Universities Commission (NUC) must first conduct its accreditation before any professional body.
“In November 2023, NUC visited the institution for accreditation of all programmes that were due for the exercise including programmes in the five departments of the Faculty of Engineering, the result of that exercise is still being awaited.
“The University has no record of failed accreditation with its engineering programmes as COREN is making people believe.
“It is on the strength of the outcome that COREN will be officially invited by the university to come for its professional accreditation.
“If COREN feels that it cannot wait for NUC results then it should write to the University like other professional bodies are doing, giving us dates for their visits,” he said.
The registrar asserted that using the public space to promote a campaign of ill will and damage to the name of UNICAL under the guise of rolling out a recommendation at its 181st Ordinary Council Meeting was not acceptable.
He called for caution from COREN, adding that as a professional body, they should be more concerned with promoting and nurturing their would-be professionals.
