The Federal Government has commenced plans to overhaul the accreditation system for tertiary institutions, with Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, warning universities, polytechnics and colleges of education against presenting borrowed staff, equipment or facilities during accreditation exercises.
Alausa said the government wants to transform accreditation from a periodic exercise into a continuous, digital and data-driven quality assurance system capable of accurately verifying the capacity of tertiary institutions.
The minister spoke on Wednesday during the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
According to him, the existing system must become more transparent, efficient and evidence-based while making it difficult for institutions to manipulate accreditation processes.
Alausa said institutions should no longer be able to create a temporary impression of their capacity 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 also address the temporary movement or borrowing of academic and non-academic personnel for accreditation purposes.
He extended the warning to equipment, laboratories, workshops, library materials and other infrastructure temporarily brought in to give institutions the appearance of meeting required standards.
Alausa stressed that everything presented during an accreditation exercise must reflect the actual and sustainable capacity available to students.
The minister said technology would be deployed to verify institutional infrastructure, equipment and personnel.
Proposed tools include geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification technologies, which would enable regulators to establish the precise location and ownership of critical resources.
“Critical equipment presented for accreditation should be capable of being digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location,” Alausa said.
He added that such equipment could have unique digital records containing information about its location, status and other relevant details.
The proposed system is intended to make it more difficult for institutions to temporarily move resources between campuses or institutions simply to pass accreditation requirement
Alausa also called for a comprehensive digital identity and staff verification framework to establish the identity, presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented during accreditation.
He proposed collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the use of the National Identification Number (NIN), alongside BVN infrastructure and other secure technologies.
The objective, he said, would be to establish the principle of “one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation.”
The system should also be capable of detecting cases where an individual is improperly presented as full-time staff by multiple institutions.
The education minister said the current accreditation model, which largely operates every three to five years, should be replaced with a continuous quality assurance process.
“A longer-term objective should be to move from accreditation as an event to accreditation as a continuous quality assurance process,” he said.
Under the proposed model, institutions would be expected to maintain prescribed standards throughout the year instead of making special preparations whenever an accreditation team is due to visit.
A digital accreditation platform would allow regulators to regularly update and verify information relating to staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and equipment.
Alausa clarified that physical accreditation visits would remain part of the process but would increasingly be used to validate information that had already been digitally verified.
“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.
He said the approach would enable the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) to build reliable institutional histories rather than depend mainly on information gathered during individual accreditation exercises.
Alausa disclosed that the Ministry of Education had recently held a collaborative meeting involving the three major tertiary education regulatory bodies and professional regulatory organisations.
He said the government was also awaiting advice from the Attorney-General of the Federation on the next steps.
According to him, a digital platform serving as a “single source of truth” for verified institutional data could reduce regulatory conflicts and improve coordination among relevant agencies.
“One way to do that will be to have a platform where everyone can go and see proof of data. It becomes standardised, and it will be easy and efficient,” he said.
The minister noted that some of the accreditation toolkits currently in use were developed decades ago and had contributed to conflicts among regulatory bodies.
Alausa described the newly inaugurated committee as coming at a pivotal time for Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
He tasked members with reviewing the accreditation processes of the NUC, NBTE and NCCE and developing practical recommendations for their modernisation.
The ultimate goal, he said, is to establish accreditation processes that are credible, transparent, technology-driven, efficient and based on independently verifiable evidence.
“Technology should enable us to move from declarations to verification and from assumptions to evidence,” Alausa said.
He stressed that the reform was not about technology for its own sake but about protecting the integrity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system and the interests of students.
Earlier, the Director of Polytechnic Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Amy Igwe, said the committee was expected to contribute to building a more transparent, robust and credible accreditation system.
Igwe said the initiative reflected the government’s commitment to improving education standards and protecting Nigerian students.
She acknowledged that some institutions had previously been known to temporarily move or borrow resources and personnel for accreditation exercises.
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According to her, the proposed reforms should help eliminate such practices and ensure institutions maintain the required standards on a sustainable basis.
She urged committee members to commit their time and expertise towards strengthening Nigeria’s accreditation system for the benefit of students.
The Federal Government’s proposed accreditation reforms seek to shift Nigeria’s tertiary education quality assurance system from periodic inspections to continuous digital verification.
The move could make it harder for institutions to temporarily borrow staff, equipment and facilities to meet accreditation requirements while placing greater emphasis on the standards students experience throughout the year.
