The National Universities Commission (NUC) has granted permission for the London Academy of Business School (LABS) in partnership with University of Sunderland, United Kingdom, to operate in Nigeria.
To that effect, their first academic session is expected to commence in January 2024 at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN) in Abuja.
Already, a delegation from University of Sunderland led by Dr. Derek Watson, an Associate Professor from the Faculty of Business Law and Tourism, has assured that students in Nigeria will have the same academic standards with their counterparts in UK, while the management at the same time promised to respect the environment and guidelines from the NUC.
Speaking to journalists after meeting with the Executive Secretary of NUC, Dr. Watson said, “The meeting with the Executive Secretary was very productive, the University of Sunderland has over 30 years of experience.
“What we have agreed on today is the criticality in following the compliance procedures. In addition to that, we would source credible academics to deliver our programmes from LABs who are qualified teachers and also practising consultants. The students will get the same experience as those students studying in England.”
Also speaking, the President/Director of Studies, London Academy of Business School (LABS), Dr. Larry Jones-Esan, explained that the visit to NUC was to get the operational licence to operate in Nigeria.
According to him, “The meeting with the NUC today is for us to get the recognition that we are allowed to run the Sunderland courses in Nigeria. So, we do not need the NUC accreditation, what we need is recognition, that is very important because if we run any course in Nigeria without them recognising it, that degree is useless and they cannot do NYSC, so we do not want that to be the case.
“So for us to do that, we have to get their permission first before we go out their and start recruiting students, otherwise, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. If they come here and say you are doing something illegal, you will pay fine and before you get out of that, it will be too much.
“So what we have done is that we bring those people in and come in myself as the CEO of the London Academy Business School, make sure that we have them aware of what we are doing.
“Today is a very important day for the London Business School in partnership with the University of Sunderland. We met with the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission discussions went as planned, making sure that we do things right.
“One thing that came out very clear is that they want people to work with them but work in a way that they respect the authorities and respect the system and the environment.
“So we are going to make sure that everything we do follows the guidelines. We have a very beautiful guideline but if you fail to follow them, you might run into trouble. If two million people apply for university admissions every year in Nigeria and only 700,000 are getting a place, that is a problem and that is a challenge and they want to solve that problem and we think we have came at the right time.
“We thank the delegates from the University of Sunderland working with the London Academy of Business School in making sure that this gives result as quickly as possible.”
Asked whether the NUC granted licence to them, he said, “This is the reason why we are here, we have gotten the license, that is recognition to run this process, that will be done within a week, and we are hopeful this will be done shortly.
We will start running the university from January 2024.”
Earlier, the team visited the Public Service Institute of Nigeria along the Kubwa Expressway in Abuja, which is going to serve as the study center and they were received by the Administrator and CEO of the Institute, Abdul-Ganiyu Obatayinbo.
The PSIN Administrator said the environment was far better than what the University of Sunderland has in the UK, adding that the institute is saddled with the responsibility of building the capacity of public/civil servants in Nigeria.
He said said that the institute has 500-seat auditorium, 12 different halls of 30-seater capacity each, hostels with 202 bedrooms, hospital, security quarters, sports complex, entrepreneurship center, among other facilities, that would make teaching and learning conducive.
Some of the courses to be offered at the undergraduate level include, computer science, business and management, network system engineering, among others, while business administration, international business management, education leadership, among others, will be offered at the master’s level.
