The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Mallam Muhammed Ado Yahuza has assured the staff of the NICO training school department, Abuja Study Centre that in his effort to encourage academic excellence, his administration shall support any staff willing to embark on PhD programme in relevant fields.
Mallam Ado Yahuza speaking during the NICO Exam Board meeting held on Monday, October 11, 2021 at NICO headquarters, Abuja said that this promise came on the heels that the training arm of NICO has always been an academic venture especially for academic staff who are resource persons for the post graduate programme in cultural administration (PGDCA), and so should be able to acquire the relevant professional qualification (s) needed to function effectively in that capacity.
His words, “We will organize training with NSUK so that they will be acquainted with the standard best practices in exams and records. If there are staff that are willing to pick their PhD forms in culture related fields, they should go ahead and do so, we will work out modalities and see how we can support them in their registration fee and tuition fee. This will help in no small measure in their schedule of duties as academic staff. So that by the time the training school is affiliated to NSUK people will come in and get the best and not think that it is a place for cheap certificate.”
Ado Yahuza earlier stated the purpose of the NICO Exam Board meeting, which was to assess and approve the two results, 2019/2020 second semester and 2020/2021 first semester results of the post graduate diploma programme in cultural administration in Nigeria (PGDCA) of the training school respectively.
The Director, NICO Training School, Mrs. Brigette Yerima in her remark welcomed all to the NICO Training School exam board meeting where two pending results were assessed and approved. Mrs. Yerima also appreciated the Nasarawa State University, Keffi (NSUK), representative and external examiner, Professor Emmanuel Danduara for his support since NICO commenced training, and especially since the NICO affiliation process with Nasarawa State University started. She also requested that training of the academic staff should be of utmost importance and priority if NICO wants to get to an enviable height as a research-based institute.
The external examiner and NSUK representative, Prof, Emmanuel Dandaura said that the two results were fair and have been approved by NSUK. He also, advised lecturers in the training arm to always consider the believability of the grades awarded to students in computing their results.
Furthermore, Prof. Dandaura explained the urgency required by NICO to hasten the affiliation process. This he said, would require NICO to pay a courtesy visit to the new Vice Chancellor of the University so as to brief him about the affiliation process as well as consolidate and conclude the affiliation process that has lingered.
According to him, “The institute needs to pay courtesy call to the new Vice Chancellor of NSUK to tidy up the affiliation process of NICO Training School with the University. There are bottlenecks that if we don’t get it done as fast as possible in order for the Post Graduate Board to approve it, it will take more time. We need to cement the good relationship and tie the loose ends to make sure that the affiliation process is concluded”. The academia however, congratulated NICO for the milestone it achieved in its recent public lecture series held in Kano.
The two results approved by the NICO exam board meeting had 20 successful students who sat for the 2019/2020 second semester examinations and 16 students for 2020/2021 first semester examinations respectively.
It could be recalled that the previous NICO exam board meeting held in March 2021 for the approval of the first semester examination result of the 2019/2020 batch of students.