FG Introduces Digital Tracking to Stop Fake Accreditation in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions
Reported By Facthabournews
The Federal Government has announced plans to overhaul the accreditation and quality assurance system in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, with a major focus on preventing institutions from temporarily assembling lecturers, equipment and facilities to create a false impression of compliance during accreditation exercises.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed the development in Abuja while inaugurating a Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria. He said the government was determined to ensure that universities, polytechnics and colleges of education are assessed based on facilities, personnel and resources that genuinely exist and remain available to students.
Alausa expressed concern over what he described as a practice where institutions prepare a temporary picture of their academic and infrastructural capacity whenever accreditation teams are expected to visit. According to him, lecturers and other personnel may be temporarily moved between institutions, while laboratory equipment, workshop resources and library materials may also be borrowed or relocated to satisfy accreditation requirements.
The minister said such practices undermine the credibility of Nigeria’s tertiary education system because institutions could obtain approval for programmes based on resources that students may not actually have access to after the accreditation team leaves.
He stressed that accreditation should not be an exercise in which institutions prepare for inspection only when regulatory officials are expected. Instead, the standards required for accreditation should be maintained continuously.
Under the proposed reforms, the Federal Government intends to make greater use of digital technology, geospatial mapping, geotagging and identity-management systems to strengthen the verification process.
The National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education have been directed to progressively move from predominantly manual and periodic accreditation procedures towards a digital, data-driven and continuously verifiable system.
One of the major proposals is the digital identification and tracking of critical infrastructure and equipment used by institutions to secure accreditation. Laboratories, workshops, major equipment and other facilities could be assigned digital records linked to their respective institutions and physical locations.
The proposed system is expected to make it more difficult for institutions to temporarily borrow or move equipment from other locations simply to satisfy an accreditation team.
The government is also looking at strengthening the verification of lecturers and other academic and non-academic personnel. Alausa said there was a need for a comprehensive system capable of confirming that individuals presented as employees of an institution are genuinely affiliated with that institution.
The ministry is expected to explore collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission, including the appropriate use of the National Identification Number and other secure technologies.
The proposed identity-verification system could help regulators identify situations where individuals are improperly presented as full-time employees by more than one institution or where staffing figures are inflated for accreditation purposes.
According to the minister, the reform would also provide a more accurate picture of the actual composition of academic departments, including the personnel who genuinely make up an institution’s workforce.
Beyond preventing false representations, the Federal Government wants accreditation to become a continuous quality-assurance mechanism rather than an exercise conducted only at intervals.
Alausa said institutions should not meet regulatory standards only when accreditation teams are expected to visit. Instead, the required standards should be maintained throughout the academic year.
This would mean that institutions seeking or retaining approval for academic programmes would be expected to continuously maintain the lecturers, laboratories, workshops, libraries, equipment and other resources required for those programmes.
The planned digital system could also enable regulatory agencies to maintain updated institutional records covering staffing, facilities, equipment and other important resources. Accreditation teams would then have access to institutional data before visiting campuses, allowing physical inspections to serve increasingly as validation of information already available to regulators.
The minister said this approach could help the NUC, NBTE and NCCE build reliable institutional histories instead of relying primarily on information obtained during individual accreditation visits.
The proposed changes could have significant implications for tertiary institutions across Nigeria, particularly those operating programmes that require specialised laboratories, workshops, equipment or specific numbers of qualified academic staff.
Institutions would be expected to demonstrate that the resources used to obtain programme accreditation are genuinely available and sustainably maintained for students.
Alausa said the guiding principle of the reform is that what an institution presents during accreditation must correspond with what actually exists and what students can access in their normal academic activities.
The ministerial committee is expected to review existing accreditation policies, standards and guidelines and recommend practical measures for integrating digital technology, institutional databases and appropriate identity-verification systems into the accreditation process.
The committee will also examine ways of cross-checking staffing information against authoritative records and improving the reliability of information supplied by tertiary institutions.
The Federal Government believes that the reforms will make accreditation more transparent, credible and evidence-based while reducing opportunities for institutions to manipulate accreditation exercises.
For students and parents, the proposed system could provide greater assurance that programmes approved by regulatory agencies are backed by the facilities and personnel required for effective teaching and learning.
Alausa said the future of accreditation should be increasingly digital, data-driven, transparent and continuously verifiable. He charged members of the committee to develop practical and innovative recommendations that would strengthen the integrity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
The reform is part of the Federal Government’s broader effort to improve quality assurance in tertiary education and ensure that academic programmes approved by regulators reflect the actual capacity of the institutions offering them.
If successfully implemented, the new approach could significantly change the way accreditation is conducted in Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education by shifting the emphasis from temporary preparation for inspection to continuous compliance and verifiable institutional capacity.
