…Plans digital tracking of lecturers, equipment, facilities
By Joseph Erunke, Abuja
ABUJA — The Federal Government has moved to overhaul the accreditation system for Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, warning institutions against presenting a false or temporary picture of their academic and infrastructural capacity during accreditation exercises.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, gave the warning in Abuja on Tuesday while inaugurating a Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
Alausa said the era of temporarily assembling lecturers, equipment and facilities ahead of accreditation visits must end, stressing that institutions should be assessed on resources that are genuinely available and sustainable.
He said the government would deploy digital technology, identity-management systems, geospatial mapping and other verification mechanisms to ensure that what institutions present to accreditation teams reflects their actual capacity.
“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 we see in a majority of instances,” the minister said.
Alausa expressed concern over the temporary movement of academic and non-academic personnel between institutions, as well as the borrowing or relocation of laboratory equipment, workshop resources, library materials and other facilities solely to impress accreditation teams.
He said such practices undermined the integrity of the tertiary education system and denied students access to the resources and personnel used to secure approval for academic programmes.
“We must ensure that when an accreditation team visits an institution, what it sees and verifies should represent the actual and sustainable capacity of that institution, not an arrangement assembled for the accreditation exercise,” he said.
Digital tracking of facilities, equipment
To close the loopholes, Alausa directed the National Universities Commission, NUC; National Board for Technical Education, NBTE; and National Commission for Colleges of Education, NCCE, to progressively move away from predominantly manual and episodic accreditation procedures to a digital, data-driven and continuously verifiable system.
He said geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification technologies should be considered for physical infrastructure, laboratories, workshops and major equipment presented during accreditation.
Under the proposed system, critical equipment used to secure accreditation would have unique digital records linked to the institution and its physical location, making it difficult for institutions to borrow or move resources merely to pass accreditation.
The minister said the same principle should apply to lecturers and other personnel.
He called for a comprehensive digital identity-management and staff-verification framework capable of establishing that individuals presented as employees of an institution were genuinely affiliated with it.
Alausa said the government would explore collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, including the use of the National Identification Number, NIN, alongside other appropriate and secure technologies.
“The objective is straightforward: one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation,” he said.
He added that the system should be capable of detecting cases where an individual was improperly presented as full-time personnel in more than one institution.
The minister also said the proposed reforms would ensure that the actual composition of academic departments, including junior academic staff and other personnel who genuinely constitute the workforce, was captured digitally.
According to him, this would prevent accreditation decisions from being based on inflated or manipulated staffing figures.
FG targets continuous quality assurance
Beyond curbing accreditation manipulation, Alausa said the government wanted to change the philosophy of accreditation from a periodic exercise to a continuous quality-assurance process.
“An institution should not meet prescribed standards only when the NUC, NBTE or NCCE accreditation team is expected. It should meet those standards every day,” he said.
He explained that a robust digital accreditation platform would enable accrediting agencies to maintain and periodically verify information on institutional staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and major equipment.
Under the proposed framework, accreditation teams would have access to reliable institutional data before visiting campuses, with physical inspections increasingly serving as validation exercises.
Alausa said the approach would make accreditation more efficient and enable inspection teams to focus more on qualitative issues requiring expert assessment and physical verification.
It would also allow the NUC, NBTE and NCCE to build reliable institutional histories rather than relying largely on snapshots captured during periodic accreditation visits.
‘What exists must be what is presented’
Alausa said the central principle of the reform was that institutions must be assessed based on what they actually possess and what is sustainably available to their students.
“What an institution presents for accreditation must be what actually exists in that institution and what is sustainably available to its students,” he declared.
He said technology should be used to move the accreditation system “from declarations to verification and from assumptions to evidence”, stressing that the objective was to protect the integrity of Nigerian tertiary education.
The committee is expected to review existing accreditation policies, standards and guidelines and recommend mechanisms for deploying digital technology, institutional databases and biometric or other appropriate identity-verification systems.
It will also examine how staffing information can be cross-checked against authoritative records.
Alausa said the ultimate goal was to establish accreditation processes that were “credible, transparent, technology-driven, efficient and based on independently verifiable evidence.”
He added that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the necessary support for the committee to deliver on its mandate.
The minister said the reform was in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the administration’s efforts to strengthen the quality of education available to Nigerian students.
“The future of accreditation must increasingly be digital, data-driven, transparent and continuously verifiable.
“We must know who is teaching in our institutions. We must know the facilities and equipment that genuinely exist. We must be able to verify where those resources are located. And we must ensure that the picture presented during accreditation is the reality that students experience every day.
“That is the reform this committee must help us deliver,” the minister said.
He charged members of the committee to be innovative, practical and bold in their recommendations.
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