Illegal admissions, borrowed facilities: FG unveils new tertiary quality checks

For years, Nigeria’s tertiary education system struggled with inadequate funding and infrastructure, as concerns over illegal admissions, overcrowded programmes and institutions allegedly presenting borrowed lecturers, laboratories and equipment during accreditation exercises raising questions about the credibility of quality assurance. Now, the FG is moving to overhaul the system, with plans for digital verification, continuous monitoring and tougher sanctions, DEBORAH TOLU -KOLAWOLE writes

From institutions admitting students far beyond approved carrying capacities to universities allegedly presenting borrowed lecturers, laboratories and equipment during accreditation exercises, concerns over the integrity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system have continued to grow.

The Federal Government is now seeking to tackle what it considers a deeper problem: a regulatory system that institutions can manipulate to create the appearance of compliance despite falling short of prescribed standards.

Its proposed solution is a major overhaul of accreditation and quality assurance, backed by digital verification, continuous monitoring and tougher sanctions.

The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, gave the warning at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria, saying officials responsible for regulatory violations could lose their jobs, while private institutions that fail to meet prescribed standards could have their licences revoked.

The committee has been mandated to review the accreditation processes of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education and recommend reforms to make the system more transparent, technology-driven and resistant to manipulation.

At the centre of the government’s concerns is the practice of institutions preparing specifically for accreditation visits instead of maintaining prescribed standards throughout the year.

Alausa said the era of creating a temporary picture of institutional capacity solely for accreditation must end.

“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.

According to him, some institutions have been known to temporarily move or borrow academic staff, laboratory equipment, workshop resources, library materials and other facilities to impress accreditation teams.

The minister said the proposed system would seek to establish whether the personnel and facilities presented during accreditation genuinely belonged to the institution and were permanently available to students.

“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,” Alausa said.

The proposed reform therefore seeks to shift the emphasis from what institutions declare to what regulators can independently verify.

Beyond accreditation, illegal admissions have emerged as another major concern.

Alausa disclosed that the number of students admitted into universities outside approved regulatory frameworks could run into hundreds of thousands.

“Estimates of students illegally admitted to universities are in the hundreds of thousands. It might not be less than hundreds of thousands. It’s more than that,” he said.

The minister also said some institutions were admitting students far beyond their approved carrying capacities, putting pressure on academic staff, classrooms, laboratories, workshops and other resources.

He cited a Chemical Engineering programme approved to admit 100 students but which, he alleged, had admitted about 1,000 additional students.

“So, I have 100 Chemical Engineering students, but then they currently have another 1,000 students. We have to have a full view of this,” he said.

For the Federal Government, however, the concern goes beyond institutions exceeding admission quotas. The bigger issue, Alausa said, is the quality of graduates produced when student numbers significantly exceed an institution’s capacity.

He said employers were already feeling the consequences of what he described as poor-quality training, citing instances where hundreds of graduates applied for jobs but only a handful met the required standards.

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

He said engineering recruitment faced a similar challenge.

“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,” Alausa added.

The minister said the government was no longer prepared to tolerate practices that undermine the credibility of Nigerian tertiary education.

“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,” he said.

He subsequently issued a direct warning to university officials and owners of private institutions.

“You will lose your job if you don’t act on time. Private institutions will lose their licences,” Alausa warned.

The proposed sanctions signal a tougher approach to enforcement as the government seeks to protect students and restore confidence in Nigerian qualifications.

The reform also builds on the Federal Government’s earlier crackdown on admissions conducted outside the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s Central Admissions Processing System.

In May, Alausa declared that admissions conducted outside the approved system were illegal and would not be recognised by the government.

The policy places greater emphasis on ensuring that the number of students admitted by each institution can be tracked and matched against its approved capacity.

For students, the implications are significant. An individual admitted through an unauthorised process could spend years in an institution without certainty that the qualification obtained at the end of the programme will be recognised.

The government is therefore seeking to close the gaps that allow institutions to admit students outside approved procedures while simultaneously presenting apparently compliant records to regulators.

Accreditation deception

The committee inaugurated by Alausa is expected to address one of the longstanding weaknesses in Nigeria’s quality assurance system: the tendency to treat accreditation as a periodic inspection rather than an ongoing responsibility.

Alausa noted that accreditation currently operates largely on a cycle of about three to five years. His preference is for a system in which institutions are continuously monitored, with digital records updated throughout the year.

Under the proposed framework, regulators would have access to verified information on an institution’s academic staff, laboratories, workshops, equipment, library resources and other facilities before accreditation teams arrive for physical inspections.

Physical visits would then serve primarily to confirm existing records rather than begin the verification process from scratch.

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

He added, “The physical visit will remain important, but it should increasingly serve to validate verified data rather than begin the verification process from scratch.”

The proposed digital system could fundamentally change the relationship between institutions and regulators. Instead of relying primarily on what institutions declare they have, regulators would be able to independently verify what exists.

Tracking lecturers, equipment

One of the most ambitious elements of the proposed reform is the digital identification of institutional resources.

Alausa said critical equipment presented during accreditation should be digitally identifiable and linked to the institution and physical location where it is actually deployed.

“Critical equipment presented for accreditation should be capable of being digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location,” he said.

The same principle would apply to academic staff.

The minister proposed a comprehensive digital identity management and staff verification framework through which regulators could establish the identity, presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented for accreditation.

The framework could leverage national identity infrastructure and interoperable government databases, subject to data protection requirements.

Alausa specifically mentioned the National Identification Number and Bank Verification Number infrastructure as possible tools for establishing the principle of “one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation.”

The objective is to prevent a situation in which one lecturer is presented as full-time academic staff in multiple institutions.

It would also enable regulators to establish a clearer picture of the actual staffing capacity of individual universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

The bigger question

For the former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and chairman of the committee, the reform should go beyond identifying individual cases of malpractice.

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He said the committee must examine the philosophy behind accreditation itself.

Responding to the minister, the former JAMB registrar said access, quality and funding had traditionally been viewed as the three major pillars of tertiary education. But he argued that the conversation must also consider impact, retention, success rates and the relevance of tertiary education.

“Because access without quality is nonsensical. It does not serve the purpose of education,” he said.

His argument reflects a central challenge confronting the government: expanding access to higher education has limited value if institutions cannot guarantee the quality of education provided to the students they admit.

The former JAMB registrar also criticised the practice of preparing institutions specifically for accreditation visits.

He questioned why an institution should suddenly mobilise resources simply because an accreditation team is coming.

The essence of accreditation, he argued, should be to assess an institution as it genuinely operates, rather than as it temporarily presents itself.

“It appears people get the same grade of accreditation, and after accreditation, they go back to where they were,” he said.

He compared the practice to preparing students specifically for an examination instead of testing their actual knowledge.

According to him, accreditation should therefore evolve into a continuous process of monitoring rather than remain a periodic assessment.

Regulators work together

Another issue raised by the committee chairman is the relationship between tertiary education regulators and professional regulatory bodies.

He said disagreements could arise when professional bodies impose requirements that are not sufficiently integrated into the university accreditation process.

He cited programmes leading to professional qualifications, arguing that students should not graduate from an institution only to discover that they cannot proceed to professional certification.

The former JAMB registrar said regulatory agencies should work together to establish clear, reasonable and relevant standards.

Using law as an example, he said the Council of Legal Education and other relevant bodies should be part of a coordinated accreditation framework.

His argument is that accreditation should not operate in silos. Rather, regulators should share a common understanding of what constitutes acceptable training, staffing, facilities and institutional capacity.

Alausa similarly said the government wanted the National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education to strengthen coordination among themselves and with professional regulatory bodies.

The minister disclosed that the Ministry had recently held a collaborative meeting involving the three major tertiary education regulators and professional regulatory organisations.

He added that the government was awaiting advice from the Attorney-General of the Federation on the next steps.

Avoiding unrealistic standards

The committee chairman, however, cautioned that reform must not simply translate into imposing more requirements on institutions.

He argued that regulators must distinguish between standards that genuinely improve educational outcomes and requirements that merely create additional bureaucratic hurdles.

He cited examples of accreditation requirements that, in his view, may not necessarily translate into better learning outcomes, stressing that standards should be realistic and connected to the needs of students.

The concern is significant given the diversity of Nigeria’s tertiary education system.

The challenges facing a large public university, for instance, may differ considerably from those confronting a newly established private university, polytechnic or college of education.

A uniform regulatory framework must therefore be rigorous enough to protect academic standards while remaining practical enough to accommodate differences in institutional mandates and circumstances.

Monitoring as missing link

For the committee chairman, continuous monitoring remains one of the biggest gaps in the current system.

He argued that institutions should not simply be assessed when accreditation teams arrive but monitored throughout the accreditation cycle.

The point is particularly relevant to institutions whose staffing, infrastructure and facilities may change significantly between accreditation exercises.

The government’s proposed digital system could provide a mechanism for regulators to monitor institutional capacity continuously.

Rather than waiting years to discover that a programme has become overcrowded or that critical facilities are no longer functional, regulators could potentially identify such gaps much earlier.

For students, that could provide greater protection.

For institutions, it would mean that compliance could no longer be something achieved temporarily for the benefit of an accreditation team.

And for regulators, it would provide a more reliable institutional history, replacing periodic snapshots with continuously updated information.

Test for Tinubu’s govt

The accreditation reform is also likely to test the Federal Government’s commitment to improving the quality of tertiary education under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

The administration has emphasised digital transformation, improved access to education and human capital development. But access without quality risks producing the very problem Alausa highlighted: large numbers of graduates without the competencies required by employers.

The minister’s position suggests that the government now sees quality assurance as central to its education reform agenda.

The more difficult question, however, will be enforcement.

Nigeria has had regulatory standards for years. The challenge has often been whether regulators have the capacity and institutional strength to enforce those standards consistently.

The threats of dismissal and licence revocation will therefore be tested not by the strength of the warnings, but by whether institutions and officials that violate the rules are actually sanctioned.

The same applies to illegal admissions.

If the minister’s estimates of hundreds of thousands of illegally admitted students are accurate, addressing the problem will require more than penalising institutions. It will also require identifying affected students, establishing how they were admitted, determining their academic status and putting measures in place to prevent a recurrence.

The proposed digital infrastructure could provide some of the tools needed to do this.

Alausa’s guiding principle is that technology should make it harder for institutions to conceal non-compliance.

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

That principle could reshape tertiary education regulation if translated into effective implementation.

For now, the ministerial committee has the responsibility of designing that new system.

Its impact may ultimately be measured not by how impressive accreditation reports appear, but by whether institutions can maintain the standards they present to regulators after the accreditation team has left—and whether students can be confident that the institutions admitting them have the capacity and approval to provide the education they promise.

In a system where, according to the minister, hundreds of thousands of students may have entered universities through illegal admissions and some institutions allegedly borrow the resources needed to pass accreditation, the proposed reforms represent an attempt to address weaknesses in the system at their source.

The message from the Federal Government is clear: accreditation is expected to become less about what institutions can present on inspection day and more about what they can consistently demonstrate throughout the year.