http://allafrica.com/stories/200705160728.htmlhttp://www.webometrics.info/top100_continent.asp?cont=africaCountry Varsities Out of World Ranking
Daily Champion (Lagos)
NEWS
16 May 2007
Posted to the web 16 May 2007
By Erasmus Alaneme
Abuja
AFRICAN universities were again at the receiving end as the World Universities Webometric ranking released yesterday showed that only University of Cape Town, South Africa was listed among the first 500 best universities worldwide.
Also, on the continent's ranking, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife came a distance 44th position on the list of the first 100 best universities in Africa.
These declarations emerged even as the National Universities Commission (NUC) yesterday insisted that programmes offered by the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) have not been accredited.
Daily Champion gathered that of the 500 universities listed, United States of America and Canada accounted for 238, while Europe, Oceania, Asia and Latin America got 211, 21, 20 and nine universities in that order.
Although only Univeristy of Cape Town made the 500 list, it however did not rank among the first 200 universities in the world.
According to the NUC only four Nigerian universities OAU ranked 44th followed by the University of Ibadan (UI) on the 65th position, University of Benin (UNIBEN) 79th position and the University of Lagos on the 90th slot made it among the first 100 universities in Africa. Declaring that the country's rating has further dipped this year, the NUC noted that in 2006, five Nigerian universities UI, OAU, UNIBEN, University of Lagos (UNILAG) and University of Jos, (UNIJOS) ranked among the first 100 universities in Africa.
However, proffering reason for the poor outing, the NUC attributed it to the fact that previous research findings by academic in the nation's universities were not respected.
Meanwhile, the NUC through its executive secretary, Prof Julius Okojie yesterday reiterated that the programmes offered by NOUN were not accredited.
Prof Okojie who spoke during the meeting with the University management said on the status of the institution that "it was a statement of fact that NOUN's programmes had not been visited/accredited by NUC".
The NUC in its weekly bulletin released on Monday noted that to receive approval or recognition of the establishment of programmes or institutions was quire different from programme accreditation.
According to him, programmes could only be visited for accreditation when they have mature which in the case of NOUN and other distance learning programmes will be after three years, promising to send accreditation team to assess the programmes of NOUN at the appropriate time.