The Federal Government has raised the alarm over massive illegal admissions into Nigerian tertiary institutions, disclosing that more than 258,000 students were admitted outside approved processes by universities and colleges of education.
Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, who disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja, said about 58,000 students were illegally admitted into colleges of education, while the number in universities was estimated at not less than 200,000.
Alausa spoke at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions, chaired by the immediate past Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof Is-haq Oloyede.
The minister described the scale of illegal admissions as a ‘shame’, warning that the Federal Government would no longer legitimise irregularities through repeated amnesty or ‘condonement’.
He said the government had initially expected a proposed one-off amnesty for illegally admitted students in colleges of education to cover about 5,600 beneficiaries, but the exercise eventually revealed 58,000 affected students nationwide.
According to him, the situation was even more alarming in some institutions.
Alausa cited one institution where 8,593 students were legally admitted, while 9,872 others were illegally admitted, meaning that the number of students admitted outside the approved process exceeded those admitted through the legitimate channel.
‘The estimate of students illegally admitted to our universities today are in the hundreds of thousands. It might not even be less than 200,000. It’s more than that,’ he said.
The minister said the development reflected a deeper crisis in the tertiary education system, particularly the practice of admitting students beyond approved institutional capacities and programmes.
He warned that the consequences of such practices extended beyond the universities to the labour market, where employers increasingly struggle to find suitably qualified graduates despite receiving hundreds of applications for advertised positions.
‘We cannot continue to deceive our citizens,’ Alausa said, stressing that the government was determined to restore integrity and quality to Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
Alausa also issued a strong warning to heads of tertiary institutions and officials involved in manipulating accreditation exercises, saying those who fail to comply with the new measures risk losing their jobs, while private institutions could have their licences withdrawn.
He said the era of institutions presenting an inflated or temporary picture of their capacity solely for accreditation visits was over.
‘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.
The minister said the Federal Government would also end the practice of institutions temporarily borrowing academic staff, laboratory equipment, workshop resources, library materials and other facilities from other institutions to meet accreditation requirements.
According to him, whatever an accreditation team sees and verifies must represent the institution’s genuine and sustainable capacity.
‘An institution should not meet prescribed standards only when the NUC, NBTE or NCCE accreditation team is expected to visit. Those standards should be met every day of the year,’ he said.
He warned that failure to address the problem would have serious consequences for institutions and officials.
‘Other presidents, other governments may have allowed this to continue, but we are not going to let this continue.
‘And at the end of this, there will be consequences. You will lose your job if you don’t act on time. Private institutions will lose their licences,’ Alausa warned.
His position comes amid concerns over the accreditation of programmes in some tertiary institutions, including the Law programme at Atiba University, Oyo State.
In August, the Council of Legal Education imposed a 10-year moratorium on the university’s Law programme, citing inadequate facilities as well as the admission and graduation of students without the requisite approval.
The development has left affected students and their parents seeking government intervention, including possible transfers to accredited institutions.
Alausa said the government would transform the accreditation system from a largely manual and periodic exercise into a digital, data-driven and continuously verifiable process.
He said the National Universities Commission, National Board for Technical Education and National Commission for Colleges of Education would be required to strengthen their mechanisms for verifying institutional staff, facilities and equipment.
‘With a robust digital accreditation platform, much of the institutional information required for accreditation can be continuously maintained and periodically verified.
‘Before an accreditation team arrives, the accrediting agency should already have reliable information on institutional staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and other equipment,’ he said.
According to him, physical accreditation visits would remain necessary but should increasingly serve to validate verified data rather than begin the verification process from scratch.
He directed the committee to develop mechanisms for verifying the authenticity and continuous availability of academic and non-academic staff presented for accreditation.
The committee is also expected to establish systems for verifying the ownership, functionality, adequacy, accessibility and sustained availability of facilities and equipment presented by institutions.
The minister advocated the use of geospatial mapping, geotagging and other digital identification technologies to track physical infrastructure, laboratories, workshops and major equipment.
‘Critical equipment presented for accreditation should be capable of being digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location,’ he said.
Alausa further called for a comprehensive digital identity and staff verification framework to establish the presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented during accreditation exercises.
He said the system should, subject to applicable laws and data protection requirements, leverage national identity infrastructure and interoperable government databases.
He said collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission should be explored to utilise the National Identification Number, alongside the appropriate use of Bank Verification Number infrastructure and other secure technologies.
According to him, the framework would establish the principle of ‘one individual, one verifiable identity and an accurately declared institutional affiliation’ and help detect cases where an individual is improperly presented as full-time staff in multiple institutions.
The minister said the committee’s mandate was not to weaken the existing accreditation system but to modernise and strengthen it through transparent, evidence-based and difficult-to-manipulate processes.
Responding, Chairman of the committee and former JAMB Registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, pledged the panel’s commitment to addressing abuses in the accreditation system.
Oloyede said accreditation should not be treated as an exercise for which institutions temporarily prepare, stressing that continuous monitoring was necessary to ensure that approved standards were maintained throughout the year.
He said the committee would also examine how regulatory and professional bodies could better integrate their accreditation processes and harmonise relevant criteria.
According to him, this would help prevent situations where students complete academic programmes but are unable to proceed to professional training or obtain registration because of accreditation-related problems.
Earlier, the Director of Polytechnic Education in the Ministry of Education, Mrs Kalau Igwe, said the inauguration demonstrated the Federal Government’s commitment to building a more transparent and integrity-driven accreditation system.
Igwe noted that the practice of borrowing or temporarily moving resources, staff and facilities for accreditation was not limited to universities but also occurred in other tertiary institutions.
The committee’s terms of reference include reviewing existing accreditation policies, standards, guidelines, procedures and operational practices across the tertiary education regulatory framework.