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Tertiary institution ranking now compulsory for varsities, polytechnics-FG

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The Federal Government has made participation in Nigeria’s national tertiary education ranking programme compulsory for all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, expanding the scheme beyond universities.

Dr Tunji Alausa, Minister of Education, announced this on Tuesday in Abuja at a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee, which has now been expanded and renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.

Alausa said the expanded ranking framework was designed to strengthen “quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness” across the country’s tertiary education system.

He said the ranking would provide institutions with “clear benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying areas requiring improvement and measuring progress,” while encouraging healthy competition among institutions.

Under the new arrangement, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will come under a unified national ranking framework, with the Federal Government expected to fund the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.

Alausa said, “The 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would commence in September, while the committee would determine the appropriate timeline for extending the exercise to polytechnics and colleges of education.”

He added that “the government would develop guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally communicate to vice-chancellancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation was compulsory.”

The minister said the policy was part of President Bola Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda, being implemented through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.

He also pledged that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the “policy direction, funding and capacity-building support” required to make the ranking exercise credible, sustainable and impactful.

According to him, the ministry would work with the committee to facilitate “in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes across tertiary institutions,” with the expectation that more Nigerian institutions would gain global recognition.

The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, described the initiative as “a significant step towards strengthening accountability and quality across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.”

She said healthy competition was essential to making institutions assess their performance and address shortcomings.

“Healthy competition is essential to encouraging institutions to assess their performance, address identified gaps and consistently improve the quality of education they provide,” she said.

Suwaiba also insisted that the ranking should cover both public and private institutions, saying the exercise would provide a mechanism for establishing and maintaining minimum standards across the sector.

She said it would help institutions understand their “strengths and weaknesses” and drive measurable improvements as the tertiary education system continues to expand.

Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, chairman of the ranking advisory committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, said the committee’s engagement with Alausa followed a memorandum congratulating the Tinubu administration over the increasing number of Nigerian universities gaining global recognition.

The committee had also called for greater investment in university education to accelerate the progress, according to Okebukola.

He said, however, that Alausa’s response went beyond the committee’s initial proposal by expanding NURAC’s mandate to cover polytechnics and colleges of education.

The development resulted in the transformation of NURAC into the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.

Okebukola expressed optimism that “sustained investment, stronger institutional capacity and the new national ranking framework” would enable more Nigerian institutions to make significant progress in international rankings.

He said the framework would help Nigerian institutions “compete confidently with leading institutions globally.”

The latest policy comes as Nigerian tertiary institutions face pressure to improve their performance in global university rankings, where factors such as research output, academic reputation, citations, international outlook and institutional resources influence their positions.

Although a growing number of Nigerian universities have secured places in international rankings, concerns remain over inadequate funding, research capacity, infrastructure, staffing and the ability of institutions to compete with better-funded universities globally.

The government’s decision to extend the national ranking framework to polytechnics and colleges of education is expected to broaden performance measurement beyond universities and establish a more coordinated system for tracking the quality and competitiveness of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

The compulsory nature of the exercise marks a significant shift from voluntary participation towards a system in which institutions will be expected to provide data and engage with nationally defined performance benchmarks.