Posted on: Fri 10-06-2022

Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) regulates the practice of Environmental Health in Nigeria as empowered by Act No. 11 of 2002. The Council's mandates among others is to: "Determine what standards of knowledge and skills are to be attained by Persons seeking to become members of the profession of Environmental Health and improving those standards from time to time as circumstances may permit". 

2. Section 12 (1) of the Act state "Subject to subsection (2) of this section, the Council may approve for the purposes of section 10 of this act" and section 12(1) (b) concludes "any institution either in Nigeria or elsewhere which the Council considers is properly organized and equipped for conducting the whole or any part of the course of training approved by the Council....". In addition, subsection 3 states that "The Council may, if it thinks fit, withdraw any approval given under this section in respect of any course, qualification or institution...". 

3. Consequent upon the above, the Council wishes to bring to public notice the negative effect of the wide spread proliferation of unapproved and unaccredited Environmental Health Programmes in public and privately-owned Health Training Institutions across the Nation. This development is of serious consequences to the health of the citizenry. The Council to this end, shall be embarking on enforcement to checkmate this menace, as this development if left unchecked will lead to further aggravation of the challenges posed by quack Practitioners in the field. 

4. In view of the foregoing, the Council is requesting the intervention of the Honourable Commissioners of State Ministries of Health and Education towards addressing these challenges. Furthermore, the list of Health Training Institutions in Nigeria with the Approval/Accreditation status of Environmental Health Programmes is herewith enclosed for the guidance of the subnational Governments, prospecting Students and the General Public. Any Programme not listed therefore, infers that its Approval/Accreditation either expired effective January, 2020 or has not been approved or accredited in the first instance. 

5. It is also important to state that any Training Institution running any Environmental Health Programme not in this list, is operating illegally and in gross violation of the relevant Sections of the Act. It is also necessary to further inform that, no such Institution would legally run any National Diploma Programme in Environmental Health until it obtains approval from the Council and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). 

6. Similarly, the Honourable Commissioners may wish to note that, in order to sanitize Environmental Health Training, the Council recently resolved to stop Environmental Health Technician (EHT), Environmental Health Assistant (EHA) and any other similar non-National Diploma Training in line with the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation's (HCSF) Circular HCSF/SPSO/ODD/NCE/CND.100/5.10/III/104: 'USE OF ONLY ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS FOR ENTRY INTO THE CIVIL/PUBLIC SERVICE OF THE FEDERATION' dated 12th April, 2021. 

7. In furtherance of the standardization drive, the Council has equally decided to implement strictly, the Candidates indexing requirement based in institutions supervisory powers conferred on the Council, in Section 13 (1) (a) which states inter alia " The Council shall keep itself informed of the nature of instruction given at improved institutions to persons attending approved Courses of Training". Accordingly, no Environmental Health graduate from any Institution would be eligible to take the 2022 Certification Examination and subsequent examinations until they present evidence of their Indexing by the Council, at commencement of training. 

8. By this notice therefore, Proprietors of such Training Institutions in violation of the enabling Act are advised to get their Environmental Health Programmes approved or accredited by the Council in order to avoid being sanctioned. In the same manner, they are expected to ensure indexing their Students and when due. To this end therefore, such Institutions have up to 31st September, 2022 to do so, after which Administrative cum Legal Proceedings would be instituted against them. 

Signed:

Yakubu Mohammed Baba PhD

Registrar / CEO

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