The Nigerian Government has warned universities, polytechnics and colleges of education against borrowing staff, equipment and facilities to create a false impression of their capacity during accreditation exercises.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the government was working to overhaul the accreditation system and transform it from a periodic exercise into a continuous, digital and data-driven quality assurance process.
Alausa spoke on Wednesday during the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
He said the reform would make accreditation more transparent, efficient, evidence-based and difficult to manipulate.
According to him, institutions should no longer be allowed to temporarily assemble personnel, equipment and facilities simply to satisfy accreditation teams.
“An institution should not be able to prepare a temporary picture of itself simply for the purpose of an accreditation visit. Sadly, this is what persists in the majority of instances,” he said.
The minister said the government would address the practice of temporarily moving or borrowing academic and non-academic staff from other institutions for accreditation purposes.
He also listed equipment, laboratory facilities, workshop resources, library materials and other infrastructure among resources that institutions should not temporarily acquire or present during accreditation.
Alausa stressed that everything presented to accreditation teams must reflect an institution’s “actual and sustainable capacity”.
To achieve this, he said the government would deploy technology to verify infrastructure, equipment and personnel through geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification systems.
He explained that critical equipment presented for accreditation should be digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location.
“Where appropriate, such equipment should have a unique digital record showing its location, status and other relevant information,” he said.
On staffing, Alausa proposed a digital identity management and staff verification system that would enable regulators to establish the identity, presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented by tertiary institutions.
He said the system could leverage national identity infrastructure and interoperable government databases, subject to data protection laws.
The minister also proposed collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission to use the National Identification Number, alongside BVN infrastructure and other secure technologies.
He said the objective would be to establish the principle of “one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation”.
According to him, the system should be capable of identifying cases where an individual is improperly presented as full-time staff in multiple institutions.
Alausa said the reforms were necessary because the existing accreditation model largely operates as a periodic exercise conducted every three to five years.
“A longer-term objective should be to move from accreditation as an event to accreditation as a continuous quality assurance process,” he said.
He explained that institutions would be expected to maintain prescribed standards throughout the year rather than make temporary preparations whenever an accreditation team was scheduled to visit.
The minister said a digital accreditation platform would allow regulators to continuously maintain and verify information on institutional staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and equipment.
He added that physical accreditation visits would remain necessary but would increasingly be used to validate already verified data rather than begin the verification process from scratch.
Alausa said the approach would enable the National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education to develop reliable institutional histories instead of relying mainly on information obtained during periodic accreditation exercises.
He disclosed that the Ministry of Education had recently held a collaborative meeting involving the three major tertiary education regulatory bodies and professional regulatory bodies.
He added that the government was awaiting advice from the Attorney-General of the Federation on the next steps.
According to Alausa, a digital platform serving as a “single source of truth” for verified institutional data could help resolve regulatory conflicts and improve coordination among regulatory bodies.
“The accreditation toolkits that we have been using were developed decades ago. We see conflicts arising,” he said.
The minister said the newly inaugurated committee had been constituted at a pivotal time to develop a framework capable of aligning accreditation, regulatory and professional bodies.
He said a centralised platform where stakeholders could access verified institutional information would make the accreditation process more standardised and efficient.
Alausa said the guiding principle of the reform was that what an institution presented during accreditation must reflect what actually existed and was sustainably available to students.
“Technology should enable us to move from declarations to verification and from assumptions to evidence.
“This is not technology for its own sake. It is technology developed to protect the integrity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system and the interests of our students,” he said.
He charged the committee to review the accreditation processes of the NUC, NBTE and NCCE and develop practical recommendations for their modernisation.
The minister said the ultimate objective was to establish accreditation processes that were credible, transparent, technology-driven, efficient and based on independently verifiable evidence.
Earlier, the Director of Polytechnic Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Amy Igwe, said the committee was expected to help build a more robust, transparent and credible accreditation system.
Igwe said the initiative reflected the government’s commitment to improving the education sector and protecting the interests of Nigerian students.
She acknowledged that some institutions had previously moved or borrowed resources and staff temporarily for accreditation exercises, adding that the proposed reforms should help eliminate such practices.
She urged members of the committee to dedicate their time and expertise to strengthening the accreditation system for the benefit of Nigerian students.
The proposed reforms come amid broader efforts to improve quality assurance and strengthen the integrity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system, particularly amid concerns over standards, infrastructure, staffing and the alignment of academic programmes with national development needs.