(1553) ACCREDITATION AND POST-ACCREDITATION EXPERIENCES OF ARCHITECTURE SCHOOLS IN SOME PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA

摘要

Quality assurance is the bedrock of higher education in any society. In Nigeria, quality assurance inarchitectural education is undertaken in a number of ways and especially through programmeaccreditation by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the professional bodies which in thiscase are the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON) and the Nigerian Institute ofArchitects (NIA). Against the background that private universities are relatively new comers to theNigerian educational system, this paper examined the accreditation and post-accreditationexperiences of schools of architecture in some private universities. Four private universities withaccredited architecture programmes in South-West Nigeria were used as cases for the study.Interviews and documentary evidence were the main sources of data. It was found that the lean andefficient management structure of private universities facilitated prompt planning and execution of theaccreditation processes. A potential area of conflict was identified in the annual post-accreditationvisitation of professional jurors sent by ARCON/NIA to assess the terminal works of the students. Amore pragmatic approach to the issue of professional jurors was proposed. Most importantly, aframework for continuous school-practice interface was adjudged to be better in promoting the qualityof architectural education in the study area which ultimately may facilitate validation in the globalcontext.