The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has warned heads of tertiary institutions against manipulating accreditation exercises, saying officials who compromise 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.
The Minister said government would no longer tolerate institutions presenting inflated or misleading records of academic capacity during accreditation.
“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,” he said.
“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 lose your job if you don’t act on time. Private institutions will lose their licences,” Alausa warned.
He announced that the Federal Government would end the practice of institutions temporarily borrowing academic staff, equipment and facilities from other institutions to meet accreditation requirements.
“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.
Alausa stressed that whatever an accreditation team sees must represent the institution’s genuine and sustainable capacity.
According to him, the same would apply to laboratories, workshops, library materials and other resources.
The Minister said the reform is designed to strengthen the credibility, integrity and transparency of accreditation across universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
He said the NUC, NBTE and NCCE have critical responsibilities and that standards “should be met every day of the year,” not only during visits.
To achieve this, government will deploy a robust digital accreditation platform with:
Geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification for infrastructure and equipment
A comprehensive digital identity and staff verification framework using NIN and BVN in collaboration with NIMC
Continuous maintenance and periodic verification of institutional data before physical visits
“Critical equipment presented for accreditation should be capable of being digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location,” he said.
The system will also detect cases where one individual is improperly presented as full-time personnel in multiple institutions.
Alausa also expressed concern over illegal admissions running into hundreds of thousands, blaming tolerance of irregularities under previous administrations.
He assured that the President Bola Tinubu administration would no longer allow such practices.
Chairman of the Ministerial Committee and former JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, pledged the committee’s commitment to addressing abuses.
He said accreditation should not be treated as a one-off exercise and that continuous monitoring is critical.
The committee will also examine how regulatory and professional bodies can better integrate accreditation processes to prevent situations where students graduate but cannot proceed to professional registration.
Alausa’s warning comes amid controversy over the Council of Legal Education’s 10-year moratorium on the Law programme at Atiba University, Oyo State, imposed in August over inadequate facilities and unapproved admissions, while affected students and parents are now seeking government intervention and possible transfers.
Terms of Reference
The committee is to:
Review existing accreditation policies and guidelines
Identify loopholes undermining accreditation
Strengthen staff and resource verification
Improve independence and accountability of accreditation panels
“The objective is not to weaken the existing accreditation system but to modernise and strengthen it through transparent, efficient, evidence-based and difficult-to-manipulate processes,” Alausa said.