Participating in ranking exercise now compulsory for all tertiary institutions — Alausa

…expands exercise beyond varsities

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

The Federal Government has expanded Nigeria’s national tertiary education ranking exercise to cover universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, with participation now compulsory for all institutions across the country.

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

Alausa said the expanded ranking framework was part of President Bola Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda, being implemented through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI).

He said the exercise was designed to strengthen quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.

He also explained that the ranking would provide institutions with clear benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying areas requiring improvement and measuring progress, while also promoting healthy competition among institutions.

The minister disclosed that 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.

Alausa promised that the Federal Government would provide funding for the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), develop guidelines to institutionalise the ranking and formally communicate to vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation is compulsory.

Speaking earlier, Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Sa’id Ahmad, described the initiative as a major step towards strengthening accountability and quality across the tertiary education sector.

She said healthy competition among institutions would encourage them to assess their performance, address identified gaps and continuously improve the quality of education they provide.

The minister also stressed the need for the ranking exercise to cover both public and private institutions, saying it would provide a mechanism for establishing and maintaining minimum standards across the sector.

She assured the committee of the Ministry’s support, noting that the exercise would enable institutions to understand their strengths and weaknesses and drive measurable improvements as the tertiary education system expands.

Chairman of the committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, in his remarks, said the committee’s meeting with Alausa followed a memorandum congratulating the Tinubu administration on the increasing number of Nigerian universities gaining global recognition.

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

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

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

Alausa further pledged that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the policy direction, funding and capacity-building support needed to make the ranking exercise credible, sustainable and impactful.

He said the Ministry would work with the committee to facilitate in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes across tertiary institutions.

The minister expressed the expectation that the measures would result in significantly more Nigerian institutions achieving greater global recognition in subsequent international ranking exercises.

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