BUK Programs Get International Accreditation

French High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES) has granted a five-year unreserved international accreditation status on two programs of the Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA), Bayero University, and Kano (BUK).

The two programs, according to a statement forwarded to Solacebase on Thursday have satisfied all the requirements and accreditation standards set aside by the body. This came after a rigorous evaluation process involving self-evaluation, desk reviews, and an on-site visit.

The Programs accredited are MSc Natural Resource Management and Climate Change and MSc Agronomy (Crops and Cropping Systems in Drylands).

The MSc Natural Resource Management and Climate Change program is housed in the Department of Geography, while the MSc Agronomy (Crop and Cropping Systems in Drylands) is domiciled in the Department of Agronomy.

The HCERES team visited BUK on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019, to evaluate the two programs. During the visit, the team evaluated the records of the programs, inspected teaching and research facilities, and interacted with staff, students, alumni, and industry partners related to the programs.

The President of HCERES, Michel COSNARD, communicated the board’s decision to Bayero University on 10th September 2019 and said that considering the accreditation criteria analysis, five-year unreserved accreditation decision had been granted to each of the two programs.

The communication, however, draws the attention to the various recommendations made by the committee of experts in its evaluation report, which include the need to increase the contribution of the industrial partners in the core courses; improve on the monitoring of the students’ progress during research-dissertation phase to fix temporal objectives, and reduce the too long time until graduation.

The CDA was also advised to improve the current graduate tracking systems by creating a formalized system.

The French body evaluated aims of the study programs, position of the programs, teaching structure and study management in which the two programs fulfilled all the accreditation criteria.

HCERES is a French public service agency responsible for the periodic evaluation of higher education institutions, research organizations, scientific cooperation foundations, the national research agency, and research units at the request of the institutions to which they belong.

HCERES operates according to a European framework and is recognized by the European Association of Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) of quality agencies.

It ensures that the dissemination of scientific, technical and industrial results is taken into account in higher education and the career of research staff.