The Federal Government is set to overhaul Nigeria’s tertiary education accreditation system, with Education Minister Tunji Alausa warning that institutions caught manipulating accreditation exercises or breaching admission limits could face severe sanctions.
Alausa issued the warning on Wednesday while inaugurating the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
Under the proposed reforms, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education would move from periodic accreditation exercises to a continuous, digital and data-driven system designed to verify the actual capacity of institutions throughout the year.
The minister warned institutions against temporarily borrowing lecturers, equipment, laboratory facilities, library materials and other resources simply to impress accreditation teams.
“An institution should not be able to prepare a temporary picture of itself simply for an accreditation visit,” Alausa said, stressing that what regulators see must reflect the institution’s “actual and sustainable capacity.”
The government plans to deploy technologies including geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification to verify facilities and equipment. It also wants a digital staff verification system that can establish the identity, presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented during accreditation.
Alausa proposed linking staff verification with national identity infrastructure, including the National Identification Number and other secure government databases, subject to data protection requirements. The system would also help detect cases where individuals are improperly presented as full-time staff by multiple institutions.
The minister also announced tougher measures against illegal admissions, saying estimates of students admitted outside approved regulatory frameworks could run into hundreds of thousands. He said some institutions admit far beyond their approved carrying capacity, placing additional pressure on lecturers, infrastructure and other academic resources.
He warned that officials who fail to enforce admission and accreditation requirements could lose their jobs, while private institutions that breach regulatory standards risk losing their licences.
The Federal Government also announced that the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA) for academic staff in federal universities, polytechnics and colleges of education had been fully released for January to August 2026.
Alausa said the payment was made in line with the 2025 Federal Government–Academic Staff Union of Universities agreement and should now be disbursed to eligible academic staff. He added that funding for non-academic staff was being processed and could be made available in the coming weeks.
The minister said the broader accreditation reforms are intended to create a reliable digital record of institutional staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and equipment, allowing regulators to verify information continuously rather than rely on snapshots prepared ahead of accreditation visits.
