The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has warned heads of tertiary institutions against compromising the integrity of accreditation exercises, saying officials who manipulate the process risk losing their jobs while private institutions could have their licences revoked.
Alausa issued the warning on Wednesday in Abuja at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions.
He said the government would no longer tolerate institutions that present inflated or misleading records of their academic capacity during accreditation exercises, stressing that the quality of graduates produced by Nigerian tertiary institutions must reflect the standards approved by regulatory agencies.
According to him, the consequences of weak accreditation are already evident in the difficulty employers face in finding qualified graduates.
“People say they want to hire engineers. They will have 500 candidates, but they wouldn’t be able to get two, three, four or five qualified applicants. That’s the damage we’re doing to this university.
“But guess what? This Ministry of Education is not going to let this continue. Other presidents, other governments may have allowed this to continue, but we are not going to let this continue.
“And at the end of this, there will be consequences. You will go and represent the others, and your institution will lose its standing.
“The world will put the consequences in place. You will lose your job if you don’t act on time. Private institutions will lose their licences,” he said.
The minister also announced that the Federal Government would end the practice whereby institutions temporarily borrow academic staff, equipment and facilities from other institutions to meet accreditation requirements.
His position comes amid controversy surrounding the accreditation of the Law programme at Atiba University, Oyo State.
In August, the Council of Legal Education imposed a 10-year moratorium on the university’s Law programme, citing inadequate facilities as well as the admission and graduation of students without the requisite approval.
The development has left affected students and their parents seeking government intervention, including possible transfers to accredited Law faculties to prevent years of study and financial investments from being lost.
Alausa said accreditation must provide an accurate picture of an institution’s actual and sustainable capacity rather than a temporary representation assembled solely for an accreditation visit.
“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.
He said the government would tackle the practice of temporarily moving academic and non-academic personnel between institutions or presenting them for accreditation before they are returned to their original institutions.
The same measures, he said, would apply to the temporary movement, borrowing or presentation of laboratory equipment, workshop resources, library materials and other facilities solely for accreditation purposes.
According to the minister, whatever an accreditation team sees and verifies must represent the institution’s genuine and sustainable capacity.
Alausa said the reform was designed to strengthen the credibility, integrity, transparency, efficiency and sustainability of accreditation exercises across universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
He said the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) had critical responsibilities in protecting the quality of tertiary education.
“An institution should not meet prescribed standards only when the NUC, NBTE or NCCE accreditation team is expected to visit. Those standards should be met every day of the year.
“With a robust digital accreditation platform, much of the institutional information required for accreditation can be continuously maintained and periodically verified.
“Before an accreditation team arrives, the accrediting agency should already have reliable information on institutional staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and other equipment.
“The physical visit will remain important, but it should increasingly serve to validate verified data rather than begin the verification process from scratch,” he said.
The minister said the committee’s mandate was not to weaken the existing accreditation system but to modernise and strengthen it through transparent, efficient, evidence-based and difficult-to-manipulate processes.
He directed the committee to develop mechanisms for verifying the authenticity and continuous availability of academic and non-academic staff presented for accreditation.
It is also expected to establish mechanisms for verifying the ownership, functionality, adequacy, accessibility and sustained availability of facilities and equipment presented by institutions.
Alausa said technology would be deployed to transform accreditation from a predominantly manual and periodic exercise into a digital, data-driven and continuously verifiable system.
He called for the use of geospatial mapping, geotagging and appropriate digital identification technologies for physical infrastructure, laboratories, workshops and major equipment.
“Critical equipment presented for accreditation should be capable of being digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location,” he said.
The minister also advocated a comprehensive digital identity management and staff verification framework to establish the presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented for accreditation.
He said the system should, subject to applicable laws and data protection requirements, leverage national identity infrastructure and interoperable government databases.
Alausa said collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) should be explored to utilise the National Identification Number (NIN), alongside the appropriate use of Bank Verification Number (BVN) infrastructure and other secure technologies.
He said the framework would help establish the principle of “one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation”, while detecting cases where an individual is improperly presented as full-time personnel in multiple institutions.
The minister also expressed concern over illegal admissions into tertiary institutions, saying such admissions had run into hundreds of thousands.
He blamed the situation partly on the tolerance of irregularities under previous administrations but assured Nigerians that the President Bola Tinubu administration would no longer allow such practices to continue.
Responding, Chairman of the Ministerial Committee and former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, pledged the committee’s commitment to addressing abuses in the accreditation process.
Oloyede said accreditation should not be treated as an exercise for which institutions temporarily prepare, stressing that continuous monitoring was critical to ensuring that standards were maintained beyond accreditation visits.
He said the committee would also examine how regulatory and professional bodies could better integrate their accreditation processes and agree on relevant criteria to prevent situations where students complete programmes but are unable to proceed to professional training or registration.
Earlier, the Director of Polytechnic Education in the ministry, Mrs Kalau Igwe, said the inauguration demonstrated the government’s commitment to a more robust, transparent and integrity-driven accreditation system.
Igwe said the practice of borrowing or temporarily moving resources, staff and facilities for accreditation was not limited to universities but also occurred in other tertiary institutions.
She expressed optimism that the committee would help establish a more credible accreditation process capable of improving the quality of education and protecting the interests of Nigerian students.
The committee’s terms of reference include reviewing existing accreditation policies, standards, guidelines, procedures and operational practices across the tertiary education regulatory framework.
It is also expected to identify loopholes and operational challenges undermining accreditation, strengthen staff and resource verification, and improve the independence and accountability of accreditation panels.
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