Minister Threatens Sack, Licence Withdrawal Over Accreditation Fraud
Heads of Nigerian tertiary institutions who manipulate accreditation exercises to give a false impression of their academic capacity could lose their jobs, while private institutions risk having their operating licences withdrawn.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, issued the warning in Abuja while inaugurating a Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions.
For students and parents who spend years and millions of naira pursuing degrees, the minister’s message was blunt: institutions must no longer be allowed to fake compliance today and leave students to bear the consequences tomorrow.
Alausa said the Federal Government would no longer tolerate institutions presenting inflated or misleading records of their staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops or other academic resources simply to pass accreditation exercises.
He linked the consequences of weak accreditation to the growing difficulty employers face in finding suitably qualified graduates.
“People say they want to hire engineers. They will have 500 candidates, but they wouldn’t be able to get two, three, four or five qualified applicants,” the minister said.
He warned that officials and institutions involved in compromising accreditation standards would face consequences, stressing that the government would no longer allow the practice to continue.
The minister also announced plans to end the practice of institutions temporarily borrowing academic staff, equipment and facilities from other institutions to create an appearance of compliance when accreditation teams arrive.
According to him, whatever an accreditation team sees must represent the institution’s genuine, sustainable and everyday capacity, not a temporary arrangement assembled for inspection.
The warning comes amid controversy surrounding the accreditation of a Law programme at a private university in Oyo State, where the Council of Legal Education imposed a 10-year moratorium on the programme over inadequate facilities and the admission and graduation of students without the required approval.
The development has left affected students and their parents seeking government intervention, including possible transfers to accredited Law faculties, to prevent years of academic effort and financial investment from being wasted.
Alausa said such situations underline the need for a stronger accreditation system capable of protecting students before problems emerge, rather than waiting until they have completed their programmes.
“An institution should not be able to prepare a temporary picture of itself simply for the purpose of an accreditation visit,” he said.
He said accreditation standards must be maintained throughout the year and not only when officials from the National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education or National Commission for Colleges of Education are expected to visit.
Under the proposed reforms, the government plans to deploy technology to make accreditation more transparent, continuous and difficult to manipulate.
Alausa said institutional information on staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and major equipment should be maintained digitally and periodically verified, while physical accreditation visits would increasingly be used to validate existing data.
He also called for the use of geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification to establish the ownership, location, functionality and sustained availability of facilities and equipment presented for accreditation.
The minister further directed the committee to develop mechanisms for verifying the identity, institutional affiliation and continuous availability of academic and non-academic staff presented by institutions.
Chairman of the committee and former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, pledged to address abuses in the accreditation process.
Oloyede said accreditation should not be an event for which institutions temporarily prepare, insisting that continuous monitoring was necessary to ensure that standards remain intact after accreditation teams leave.
He said the committee would also examine how regulatory and professional bodies could better coordinate their accreditation processes, particularly to prevent situations where students complete programmes but later discover that they cannot proceed to professional training or registration.
Director of Polytechnic Education in the Ministry, Mrs Kalau Igwe, said the practice of temporarily moving staff, equipment and facilities for accreditation was not limited to universities but also occurred in other tertiary institutions.
She expressed optimism that the committee would help establish a more credible accreditation system that improves educational standards while protecting students and their families from avoidable losses.
The committee is expected to review existing accreditation policies, standards and procedures; identify loopholes; strengthen verification of staff and resources; and improve the independence and accountability of accreditation panels.
For the Federal Government, the proposed overhaul is ultimately about ensuring that a certificate earned by a Nigerian student represents real knowledge, real facilities and real academic standards — not a performance staged for an accreditation team.
