PAMI PROGRAMS GET HCERES INTERNATIONAL ACCREDITATION

The Pan African Materials Institute (PAMI), an African Centre of Excellence at the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja has been granted a five-year unreserved international accreditation status by the French High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES)  on two programs of the centre. The full accreditation is to run from September 2019 to September 2024.

The  accreditation are for the M.Sc and Ph.D degree programs in the Materials Science and Engineering department of the African University of Science and Technology- Pan African Materials Institute.

This international recognition of the duo programs came after a rigorous evaluation process involving self-evaluation of the curricular, research work and infrastructure, academic feats attained over the years, impact of the programs to the larger society, desk reviews, and an on-site visit.

The HCERES team visited AUST on Monday, July 1, 2019, to evaluate the two programmes. 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.

Michel Cosnard, president, HCERES, on September 12, 2019 communicated the board’s decision to the Centre Leader of Pan African Materials Institute (PAMI), Professor Peter Azikiwe Onwualu, who transmitted same to Professor Charles Chidume, Acting President, African University of Science and Technology(AUST).

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

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

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.

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