ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITIES COMPLIANCE TO NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES COMMISSION’S (NUC)’S STIPULATED ADMISSION CRITERIA AND PHYSICAL FACILITIES FOR BIOLOGY EDUCATION IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study on Analysis of Universities compliance to National Universities commissions (NUC)’s stipulated Admission criteria and physical facilities for biology education in South East, Nigeria was guided by two research questions. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of 31 Heads of Admission Unit and 31 Heads of Science Education Department summing up to 62 in all the 31 Universities in South East Nigeria. Three Private Universities only which had science Education Department were purposively selected while five Public Universities were randomly selected for the study. Two respondents from each of the eight selected Universities added up to make a sample size of 16. The Researcher developed and utilized two structured instruments for data collection namely; Questionnaire on compliance to NUC’s stipulated admission criteria for Biology Education in South-East (QCNUCSAC) and Observation checklist for compliance to NUC’s stipulated benchmark for physical facilities (OCCNUCSBPF) in South East Nigeria. Validation of the instruments was done by 3 Experts from Faculty of Education. A reliability coefficient of 0.94 was obtained with Cronbach’s Alpha. Data collected were analyzed using IBM SPSS. Mean and percentages were used to answer the two research questions. The findings of the study revealed that, Public Universities in South East Nigeria had a higher compliance to NUC benchmark for Biology Education on admission criteria while Private Universities complied more with availability of Physical facilities. It was recommended among other things that Federal government through NUC should finance the provision of standard physical facilities in Public Universities in order to create a conducive environment for learning. NUC should from time to time conduct impromptu accreditation to know the true situation of things and also identify where support is needed. This will help to checkmate unnecessary alleged window dressing during routine accreditation. There should be a severe deterrent for private Universities who indulge in compromise of admission criteria