The American University of Nigeria has been given approval by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to offer PhD and MSc academic programs in Business Administration, effective from the 2014/2015 academic session, the university spokesperson, Daniel Okereke, said in a statement Monday.

Mr. Okereke said news of the accreditation was conveyed to AUN in a letter dated October 29, 2014, following a resource assessment visit in August by a team of NUC officials. The letter was signed by the NUC Director, Academic Standards, Dr. G.B. Kumo, for the Executive Secretary, Prof Julius Okojie.

Reacting to the accreditation, an elated President Margee Ensign said, “I am pleased to announce that AUN, only ten years old, has received approval to run its first PhD program.”

Dean of the School of Business & Entrepreneurship, Professor Linus Osuagwu, explained that the School is fully set to commence admission into the M.Sc. and PhD programs starting 2015.

A little more than one year ago (April 2013), the NUC reassessed the University’s human and material resources and issued it with another five-year full accreditation to all the academic programs which had been first accredited in 2008.

The accredited programs are Accounting, Business Administration, Finance, Management & Entrepreneurship, Marketing, English Language & Literature, Telecommunication & Wireless Technology, Information System, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Economics, International & Comparative Politics, and Mass Communications (Communication & Multimedia, Advertising, Print Journalism, Television/Film, Multimedia Design.)

“As an institution modeled on American university pedagogy, AUN, now in its 10th year, strives to comply with both the American accreditation standards as well as those of the NUC,” Mr. Okereke said.

The NUC is the government agency that has the statutory mandate to accredit university academic programs in Nigeria.