Monrovia — The National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) has provisionally accredited BlueCrest University (BUC) to offer Masters' degree in Information Technology (IT).
"The Board of Commissioners of the NCHE authorizes the University to commence operation in providing IT degree at the master's level for an initial two-year period,"
"During the initial two years of operations, the NCHE will routinely monitor and evaluate the performances and deliveries of the university's approved programs. Next, BUC will reapply for the status of accreditation, and the approved program and activities will be thoroughly reassessed to determine the fitness for full accreditation status," NCHE said in a communication addressed to BUC.
The communication was followed up with a joint press conference by NCHE's Director General Prof. Dr. Edward L. Wonkeryor and Dr. Umesh Neelakantan, President of BlueCrest at the university's campus on Tuesday.
Dr. Wonkeryor said the Board was delighted to grant the University the authority to offer graduate degrees after it has satisfactorily met all of the requirements. He said university will start with IT, and after two years, will be reassessed to determine whether additional disciplines c.
"It is the position of the Board of Commissioners of Higher Education to announce to the public that we wrote the president of BlueCrest that he has been authorized to start operation immediately effectively. Ultimately BUC has fulfilled the requirements that we have set. It Is a very high bar," the NCHE's Director General said.
He said, the University's boasts of at least five faculty members with doctoral degrees and the suitable learning environment were some of the factors that led to its accreditation.
According to him, the institution has been advised to find a spatial campus in Montserrado or any of the counties and recruit more faculty members with graduate and post graduate degrees to "raise the instructional capacity of the institution, and also set up a library with adequate and current materials to enhance teaching, learning and research, which are relevant to the program offered, for quality educational provision."
Dr. Neelakantan described the certification as a milestone and noted that the University will begin operation in January 2023. With the top-notch faculty, the institution is ready to provide the best it has to offer, he said.
"We are not in a competition; we are partners and contributors to make Liberia an education hub in West Africa. It is a great feeling because it's been since 2019, we have ben tolling with the idea. It is very important that we need a full-fledged university campus."
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The accreditation comes two weeks after BlueCrest 6th graduation convocation.
Since 2014, BlueCrest University, one of Liberia's top IT universities, has instilled in students a "mindset of progress" through various IT portfolios and has advanced to a status where it offers learning portfolios in advanced software, cloud computing, and cyber security, programming, established and advanced networking platforms, Health Analytics, Data Science, Machine Learning and Deep learning technologies, Big data analytics, and many more.
Earlier on Tuesday, the university launched the Let's make Liberia Great (LMLG) Inter-school Football Tournament at the Invincible Park. The event was attended by Indian Ambassador to Liberia, Mr. Shri Pradip Kumar Yadav, who did the official kick-off. Several high schools are participating in the tournament which is expected to be climaxed on November 14, this month.
