The Federal Government has warned against the practice of tertiary institutions borrowing lecturers, equipment, laboratories, and other facilities to deceive accreditation teams, saying henceforth, institutions must be assessed on the resources they genuinely own and can sustainably provide to students.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the government has planned to overhaul the accreditation system for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education to prevent institutions from creating a “temporary picture” of their capacity whenever accreditation teams visit.
Alausa spoke in Abuja at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria.
He said accreditation was supposed to provide an accurate picture of an institution’s ability to deliver quality education, but worried that some institutions temporarily assemble personnel and facilities solely to satisfy accreditation requirements.
The government, he said, would no longer be satisfied with what institutions merely present to accreditation teams, insisting that regulators must be able to verify that the resources actually exist and remain available after the accreditation exercise.
He charged the ministerial committee to develop a credible, transparent and technology-driven accreditation framework based on independently verifiable evidence.