The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), established by decree 55 of 1970, amended by decree 27 of 1992 and now Engineers (Registration, etc) Act Cap E 11, 2004, has the mandate to regulate and control the practice of Engineering in all its aspects and ramifications.

Within this mandate, COREN regulates, controls, supervises, accredits and approves all Engineering courses in the Nation’s institutions of higher learning, as provided in section 9 (1) of the Act, which says in part “… the Council may approve … (b) any institution either in Nigeria or elsewhere, which the Council considers is properly organized and equipped for conducting the whole or any part of a course of training, approved by the Council…, (c) any qualification which, as a result of examination taken in conjunction with the course of training approved by the Council under this section, is granted to candidates reaching a standard at the examination indicating, in the opinion of the Council, that they have sufficient knowledge and skill to practise engineering as a profession”.

In order to get this approval, the institution among other requirements, must (subsection 6) “…. Submit a syllabus of its programme, content and minimum facilities to the Council for approval before a course approved by the National Universities Commission or the National Board for Technical Education, or any other engineering body, is commenced”.

The Council has further regulated that Engineering programmes must run on full time bases.

In consequence, no institution can run any Engineering course on part-time.

COREN is therefore surprised to see an advertisement placed by the Yaba College of Technology in the Guardian Newspaper of Thursday July 19, 2007, P. 69, calling for admission into part-time Programme at HND level in (i)Civil Engineering (Structure and Transport options), (ii) Electrical Engineering (Power and Electronics options), (iii) Mechanical Engineering with Production, Machine Building and Automobile options, and at ND level; (i) Civil Engineering, (ii) Electrical Engineering, (iii) Industrial Maintenance Engineering and (iv) Mechanical Engineering.

The general public is hereby warned that COREN has not given any approval whatsoever, to Yaba College of Technology to run the afore listed Engineering courses on part-time basis!. These programmes are not recognized by COREN and as such graduates are not registrable.

Council also uses this medium to remind all other institutions of learning that part-time programmes in Engineering are not acceptable to COREN and graduates are not registrable.

Thank you.