FG to overhaul varsity accreditation over borrowed lecturers, illegal admissions

The Federal Government is planning a major overhaul of tertiary institutions’ accreditation to stop schools from faking compliance during inspection.

Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said this at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance.

He warned that officials involved in violations could lose their jobs and private institutions could lose their licences.

Alausa said many institutions only prepare a temporary picture for accreditation, including borrowing lecturers and equipment.

“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.

“We must similarly address the temporary movement, borrowing or presentation of equipment, laboratory facilities, workshop resources, library materials and other infrastructure solely for accreditation purposes,” he added.

He also said illegal admissions may run into hundreds of thousands, with some programmes admitting far beyond approved capacity.

“Estimates of students illegally admitted to universities are in the hundreds of thousands,” he said.

He cited a Chemical Engineering programme approved for 100 students that allegedly admitted 1,000 extra.

On graduate quality, he said, “An employer will say, ‘I want to employ 20 lawyers,’ and 500 applicants come in. They can’t even get five qualified applicants.”

The minister said the new system will use digital verification, with equipment and staff linked to NIN and BVN to ensure “one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation.”

“A longer-term objective should be to move from accreditation as an event to accreditation as a continuous quality assurance process,” he said.

“Technology should enable us to move from declarations to verification and from assumptions to evidence,” he added.

Committee chairman and former JAMB Registrar said, “Because access without quality is nonsensical. It does not serve the purpose of education.”