By Omoyeni Ojeifo
Nigeria’s universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will now be subject to a compulsory national ranking system as the Federal Government moves to introduce common performance benchmarks across the tertiary education sector.
Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, the Minister of Education, announced this in Abuja on Tuesday during a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee (NURAC), whose mandate has been expanded to cover polytechnics and colleges of education.
The expanded ranking framework was part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda, being advanced through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI), to strengthen quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness across Nigeria’s tertiary education system, the minister said.
He explained that the ranking would provide institutions with clear benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying areas requiring improvement and measuring progress, while promoting healthy competition and continuous institutional advancement.
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 announced in a statement made available to PerSecondNews by Ikharo Attah, Special Adviser( Media and Communications).
He added that the Federal Government would provide funding through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), develop guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally communicate to vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation in the ranking process is compulsory.
Reassuring the committee and the nation of the Ministry’s commitment, Dr. Alausa 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.
“The Ministry would continue to work with the committee to facilitate in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes across tertiary institutions, with the expectation that significantly more Nigerian institutions would achieve greater global recognition in subsequent international ranking exercises,” he added.
In her speech earlier, the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Sa’id Ahmad, described the initiative as “a significant step towards strengthening accountability and quality across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.”
“A Healthy competition is essential to encouraging institutions to assess their performance, address identified gaps and consistently improve the quality of education they provide,” she noted.
The minister stressed that the ranking exercise should cover both public and private institutions.
“It would provide a mechanism for establishing and maintaining minimum standards across the sector,” she stressed.
She assured the committee of the Ministry’s full support, adding that the exercise would help institutions understand their strengths and weaknesses while driving measurable improvements as Nigeria’s tertiary education system continues to expand.
On his part, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, Chairman of the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, said the committee’s engagement with the Minister followed a memorandum congratulating the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the increasing number of Nigerian universities gaining global recognition.
According to him, the Minister’s response went beyond the committee’s initial proposal, resulting in the expansion of NURAC’s mandate to cover polytechnics and colleges of education and its subsequent transformation into the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
He 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 and compete confidently with leading institutions globally.
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