I have read with considerable interest Dr. Sani Jauro's rejoinder to my article, "Beyond the Certificate: Why COREN Must Be in the Classroom Before It Is at the Gate." I appreciate his contribution to an important national debate and, importantly, his agreement that Nigeria cannot afford poorly trained engineers.
Our disagreement, therefore, is not about the objective. It is about the institutional architecture required to achieve it. His position deserves respectful consideration. To begin with, his argument overlooks an important statutory reality. COREN's mandate does not begin when an engineering graduate leaves the university. The Engineers (Registration, etc.) Act, Cap. E11, section 9(6) unmistakably establishes a pre-graduation responsibility.
Dr. Jauro argues that NUC does not send administrators, historians or political scientists to determine whether engineering laboratories are adequate. NUC accreditation panels include professors, engineers and specialists in the relevant disciplines. That may be true, but it misses an important distinction. The issue is not merely who sits on an accreditation panel. The issue is what questions the panel is mandated and equipped to ask, what evidence it examines, and what standards it applies in reaching its judgment. An engineering professor serving on a NUC panel remains an engineering expert.
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But that professor operates within the NUC accreditation framework. NUC asks whether a university programme meets national academic standards. COREN asks an additional professional question: Does this engineering programme produce graduates who have attained the knowledge, skills and competencies required for safe and effective engineering practice? The two questions overlap. They are not identical. The Nigerian public has a direct stake in this distinction.
Dr. Jauro correctly states that international arrangements cannot override Nigerian law. I agree completely. But it would be equally wrong to dismiss Nigeria's participation in the Washington Accord as irrelevant to the accreditation question. Nigeria did not accidentally become involved in the International Engineering Alliance (IEA).
The participation matters because the Washington Accord is fundamentally about the accreditation of engineering education programmes and the substantial equivalence of their graduates. IEA membership is, therefore, not simply about allowing Nigerians to seek jobs abroad. It is about ensuring that Nigerian engineering education meets internationally accepted standards. Engineering is inherently international. All stakeholders, including vice chancellors, parents, students, deans and employers, should support COREN to meet international standards and best practices.
A Nigerian engineer may never work in Japan, the United States or the United Kingdom. But that engineer may operate a Japanese machine, maintain an American-designed industrial system, work on Chinese technology, construct infrastructure using international standards or participate in a multinational engineering project. Engineering graduates are therefore, metaphorically, engineered products. Like other engineered products, they must meet specified performance requirements.
A graduate of history may not need his qualification to satisfy the professional requirements for historians in Japan. Engineering is different because engineering practice is embedded in an interconnected technological world where failures can endanger lives and property. International benchmarking is therefore not a luxury. It is part of quality assurance.
Dr. Jauro raises another legitimate concern: if every professional regulator independently accredits university programmes, universities could face multiple visits, fees and reporting requirements. I agree. But the answer is harmonisation, not exclusion. NUC and COREN should work towards coordinated accreditation visits, harmonised documentation and clearly defined complementary responsibilities. Where appropriate, a university should not have to prepare two substantially identical self-study reports or host two separate teams examining the same facilities. But avoiding duplication should not mean eliminating professional engineering accreditation. Indeed, in 2025, the Minister of Education directed NUC and COREN, together with other professional regulatory bodies, to work towards joint accreditation arrangements based on agreed frameworks. COREN has supported this direction.
That is the sensible path forward. Thus, COREN, being the only authority to register and license engineering graduates, must ensure that the engineering programmes are duly accredited. Failure to insist on this is abdicating its responsibility and mandate. COREN must avoid the ugly and highly emotional situation whereby engineering graduates discover that they are not qualified to be registered or licensed to practice in Nigeria because the programme they passed through is not accredited by COREN as enshrined in the law of our dear country. So, in essence, COREN's insistence should be appreciated and supported by all parents and students alike.
Nigeria needs more rigorous, not less rigorous, quality assurance. The debate should also be considered against Nigeria's developmental reality. Our country is struggling with infrastructure deficits, industrial accidents, defective buildings, inadequate power systems and other consequences of weak technical capacity. We therefore need to ask whether our engineering education is producing graduates who can safely and competently design, construct, operate and maintain complex systems.
The answer cannot simply be to minimise the number of accreditation exercises. The more important question is whether the quality assurance system is sufficiently rigorous to protect society. The cost of accreditation may be measurable in naira. The cost of incompetent engineering can be measured in collapsed buildings, failed infrastructure, lost investments and, tragically, lost lives. Therefore, I will repeat that I do not advocate a turf war between NUC and COREN. I advocate a division of labour with coordination. This would give Nigeria the best of both worlds: NUC's broad academic oversight and COREN's specialised professional engineering expertise.
What Nigerian engineers are asking is not new in Nigeria. It is on record that NUC and JAMB generously support other regulatory bodies to achieve their mandates. For example, in the current admission cycle, JAMB has put the admission quotas for medical and nursing students on its portal based on the respective requests of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) among others.
The same is true for accounting or law students. But COREN doesn't get the same treatment. By the same logic, why should the population of accounting, law, medical or nursing students be controlled to match available resources while that of engineering students remains uncontrolled?
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The debate should therefore not be framed as NUC versus COREN. The real choice is between fragmented, potentially conflicting quality assurance and a coordinated system that recognises that engineering education has both an academic and a professional dimension. Dr. Jauro is right that NUC belongs in the accreditation of Nigerian universities. But it does not follow that COREN should be kept outside the classroom. COREN's statutory responsibilities begin before graduation. Its professional mandate requires attention to the formation of engineers, not merely their registration.
Its Washington Accord obligations reinforce the importance of programme-level engineering accreditation. Ultimately, this is not about which institution gets the final word. It is about the Nigerian public. When society permits someone to practice engineering, it is placing lives, infrastructure, resources and the environment in that person's hands.
Quality assurance must therefore begin before the engineer reaches the gate. Let NUC and COREN cooperate. Let them harmonise their processes. Let them reduce unnecessary costs and duplication. But let us not confuse cooperation with the abandonment of professional engineering accreditation. Nigeria needs both academic quality assurance and professional engineering quality assurance. The safest and most effective system is one in which NUC and COREN complement each other, not one in which either is required to do the other's job.
