The Federal Government is moving to overhaul the accreditation and quality assurance process for Nigeria’s tertiary institutions through digital technology, in a bid to make regulatory assessments more transparent, efficient and based on verifiable evidence.
The reform is designed to address practices in which some institutions allegedly present borrowed laboratory equipment, facilities or external academic staff during accreditation exercises in order to meet regulatory requirements temporarily.
The Federal Government says the new approach will make it more difficult for institutions to conceal their actual capacity during accreditation visits.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has inaugurated a ministerial committee on strengthening the accreditation and quality assurance system for tertiary institutions. The committee is expected to develop a more credible and technology-driven framework for assessing academic programmes and institutional capacity.
The development comes as the Federal Government raises fresh concerns over illegal admissions. It says more than 258,000 students were admitted outside approved regulatory processes across universities and colleges of education, with the estimate for universities alone put at not less than 200,000.
Government says the new measures are part of efforts to strengthen academic standards, enforce approved admission procedures and ensure that institutions have the facilities, personnel and capacity required to offer quality education.
The digitalisation of accreditation is expected to provide regulators with more reliable institutional information and reduce opportunities for manipulation during quality assurance exercises.
