PAMI- AUST Seeks Accreditation From The French Higher Education Accreditation Agency (HCERES)

The Pan African Materials Institute (PAMI), an Africa Center of Excellence (ACE) at the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja, in order to get world recognition on its programs recently hosted the French Higher Education Accreditation Agency HCERES at the AUST campus.

HCERES is the French public service agency responsible for the periodic evaluation of all state-contracted higher education and research institutions in France, their study programmes (bachelor's degree, master’s degree and doctorate-level) and their research units.
It also evaluates research bodies and groupings of institutions. HCERES operates according to a European framework and is recognised by the European Association of Quality Assurance (ENQA) and listed on the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) of quality agencies.
Performing several thousand evaluations throughout France every 5 years (250 institutions, 5,700 study programmes, 2,800 research units, 25 groupings of institutions) according to a robust methodology defined in compliance with the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG), Hcéres capitalises on French experience by putting it to good use internationally.
The HCERES team which was led by Professor Leconpte Thibout has Nagih Anari, Xvereb Cotherine, Le Boevf Vopentin, Joseph Sieve, Courtellenont Pierre and Halden Wang in the entourage.

Welcoming the visitors, the Acting President of AUST, Professor Charles Ejike Chidume expressed the university’s delight in having the french team. He narrated the various programs being offered by the university at the moment and thirteen more which would commence before the year runs out and promised to ensure all the information required by the visiting team were made available to ease their work.
Responding on behalf of the HCERES team, Professor Leconpte Thibout thanked the AUST president and its management for the warm welcome accorded them on arrival at the AUST campus.
Thibout promised to thoroughly go through the documents that would be presented to them as well as see things by themselves when on a tour of the campus.
They were later on taken to the students hostels, IT/Computer unit, the Libraries, Video conferencing room, classrooms, the ultra modern multi-laboratory built and donated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) before having a private session with the M.Sc and Ph.D students of the of the Pan African Materilas Institute before concluding their visit.
Remarkably, HCERES offers a wide variety of services in its specialist fields: study programmes, research, strategy, the internal organisation and management of higher education institutions, internationalisation, and quality policy by relying on its extensive network of academic, professional, student and administrative experts thereby meeting the needs of international higher education stakeholders by adapting to their local contexts and requirements.

Dr Hakeem Bello of the Pan African Materials Institute explaining to the french team an on-going research work at the AfDB laboratory, AUST, Abuja.A group photograph of the HCERES team with the PAMI-AUST management team during their accreditation visit to the Institute recently.