By Iroh Rosemary and Shedrack Eze

There has been unceasing joy and delight in the Department of Nursing Sciences, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT following the granting of full accreditation by the National University Commission, NUC to the department.

Director, Academic Planning, Prof Chike Anibeze who dropped this cheering news in an interview, said the accreditation marks a milestone in the current administration in the university in championing a robust, sustainable full academic programmes in the university.

Prof Anibeze who noted that the accreditation was pursued vigorously by the management since last year, said that since the department came on board about five years ago, the management of the university has been working round the clock to get it accredited.

He explained why the accreditation is most important at this particular time for the department and the university

“Yes, we had the NUC accreditation team in November last year. The nursing students would face their final professional examination soon, and without the full accreditation, the present final year students cannot graduate. The VC (Vice-Chancellor) made a special request, and it was granted that the result of the NUC (National Universities Commission) in nursing was released because without that, accreditation won’t be granted, and we have full accreditation for nursing.

“What it means is that Nursing Sciences
Department can now graduate students. There were rigorous steps in the process – they have gone for the initial resource verification, the Nursing Council (their professional body) have also visited, now the NUC has given the final node that we should start graduating nurses.

“When you graduate nurses just like you have in medicine, they can be graduate BSc Nursing but in order to equally assist in their professional development, we now invite the nursing council, they would give them the BSc certifying them as Bachelors in Nursing. It is the nursing council that would give them the professional certificate to practice nursing. The people in the profession council cannot give their own except when the NUC has certified you to be a nurse that’s when you can now practice,” he said

Meanwhile, a 200 level student of the Nursing Sciences Department, Nweze Grace Amarachchukwu has expressed gratitude to the University management and Departmental Board for working assiduously to actualize the accreditation status.

Nweze who expressed delight over the feat said with the full accreditation, the students who have graduated from the department can now go for their firs professional exams

“I want to first and foremost thank the university management and the department board for their efforts in getting the accreditation.

“I felt so excited when I heard that Nursing Science ESUT has finally been accredited. It was a thing of joy and gladness because we fought for these accreditation for the past six years.

“The previous student that have graduated have not written any of the professional exams it was really a thing of joy because we followed these accreditation both spiritually and physically. At last, our efforts were not in vain we got a full time accreditation not a temporal one,” she said.

The accreditation of the Nursing Science Department was confirmed on April 25, 2024.