The federal government has made participation in the national tertiary education ranking exercise compulsory for all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in the country.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja during a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee, which has been expanded and renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
According to a press statement by Ikharo Attah, Special Adviser (Media and Communications) to the Minister, the expanded ranking system was aimed at improving quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness across Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
He said the exercise would give institutions clear benchmarks for evaluating their performance, identifying areas of weakness and measuring progress, while promoting healthy competition.
Under the new framework, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will be assessed under a unified national ranking system. The federal government is expected to fund the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
Alausa said the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would begin in September, while the committee would determine when the process would be extended to polytechnics and colleges of education.
He added that the government would develop guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally inform vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation would be mandatory.
The minister explained that the policy formed part of President Bola Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda, being implemented through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.
He also assured that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the policy direction, funding and capacity-building support necessary to ensure that the ranking exercise remained credible, sustainable and effective.
Alausa said the ministry would work with the committee to organise in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes across tertiary institutions, with the aim of improving their performance and increasing the number of Nigerian institutions gaining international recognition.
The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, described the initiative as an important development in strengthening accountability and quality within Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
She said competition among institutions would encourage them to regularly assess their performance, identify deficiencies and take steps to improve the quality of education they provide.
Suwaiba further stated that both public and private institutions should be covered by the ranking exercise, noting that it would help establish and sustain minimum standards across the sector.
The chairman of the ranking advisory committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, said the committee’s meeting with Alausa followed a memorandum congratulating the Tinubu administration on the growing number of Nigerian universities gaining international recognition.
Okebukola said the committee had also called for increased investment in university education to sustain the progress recorded so far.
He noted, however, that the minister’s response went beyond the committee’s original proposal by expanding the mandate of NURAC to include polytechnics and colleges of education.
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