The Federal Government has announced plans to overhaul the accreditation system for Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, warning universities, polytechnics and colleges of education against presenting borrowed staff, equipment or facilities during accreditation exercises.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the reform would transform accreditation from an occasional exercise into a continuous, digital and evidence-based quality assurance process.
Alausa spoke on Wednesday during the inauguration of a Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
He said institutions should no longer be allowed to create a temporary impression of their capacity simply to satisfy accreditation teams.
According to him, the government is concerned about practices where institutions temporarily move academic and non-academic staff, laboratory equipment, workshop resources, library materials and other facilities from elsewhere to meet accreditation requirements.
The minister said whatever is presented during an accreditation exercise must reflect the institution’s actual and sustainable capacity to provide quality education.
Digital verification planned
Alausa said the government would deploy technology to verify institutional infrastructure, equipment and personnel.
He identified geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification as some of the tools that could be used to establish the location and ownership of facilities and equipment presented for accreditation.
He said critical equipment should have digital records linking it to a particular institution and physical location.
On staffing, the minister proposed a digital identity and verification framework that would enable regulators to establish the identity, presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented by institutions.
He said the system could leverage the National Identification Number, Bank Verification Number and other secure databases, subject to data protection requirements.
The proposed framework would also help identify cases where an individual is presented as full-time staff by more than one institution.
Accreditation to become continuous
Alausa said the current model, which largely relies on accreditation visits conducted every three to five years, needs to change.
He said the long-term objective was to make accreditation a continuous quality assurance process in which institutions maintain required standards throughout the year.
Under the proposed system, regulators would continuously maintain and verify data on staffing, laboratories, workshops, equipment and other facilities before physical visits.
The physical accreditation visit, he explained, would increasingly serve to validate already verified information rather than begin the verification process from scratch.
The reform is expected to involve the National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education, alongside relevant professional regulatory bodies.
Alausa said a central digital platform could serve as a “single source of truth” for verified institutional information and help reduce conflicts among regulatory agencies.
He tasked the newly inaugurated committee with reviewing existing accreditation processes and making recommendations for their modernisation.
The minister said the ultimate goal was to establish an accreditation system that is credible, transparent, technology-driven, efficient and based on independently verifiable evidence.
Earlier, the Director of Polytechnic Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Amy Igwe, said the initiative was aimed at building a more robust and credible accreditation system while protecting the interests of Nigerian students.
She acknowledged that institutions had previously been known to temporarily move or borrow resources and personnel for accreditation exercises, adding that the proposed reforms should help end the practice.
