The Federal Government’s decision to compel Nigerian universities to participate in a national ranking exercise will not solve the funding, staffing, infrastructure, and research problems crippling the country’s tertiary institutions, the Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA) has said.
CONUA National Liaison Officer, Aminu Isyaku, made the assessment on Wednesday while speaking with ARISE News, days after the government expanded its ranking framework to cover all tertiary institutions.
Isyaku acknowledged that the ranking initiative had merit in principle, particularly as a tool for benchmarking institutions. He, however, questioned its capacity to produce meaningful improvements in the quality of university education.
“So, I don’t think this new additional layer of benchmarking and ranking of universities simply giving them numbers in terms of hierarchy will produce any positive outcomes,” he said.
The academic maintained that Nigeria’s tertiary education crisis was rooted in structural deficiencies rather than the absence of competition among institutions.
He identified inadequate funding, shortages of academic personnel, limited international exposure, and poor laboratory facilities as more pressing concerns requiring government attention.
“But we also have a number of concerns, because if you’re trying to achieve quality assurance and also international benchmarking, the fundamental challenge for Nigerian universities is not that they do not know how to rank themselves, but the persistent issue is the funding issues, staffing matters, you know, international exposure, laboratory facilities, you know, and the rest of them,” Isyaku said.
From his viewpoint, the central question should be what universities produce for society, rather than where they appear on a national league table.
He called attention to research output and its practical value: that institutions should be assessed by the extent to which their scholarship contributes to Nigeria’s economy and addresses challenges beyond the country.
“So, the issue is not really about forcing competition among themselves, but what do you do to also force them to produce viable research outputs, you know, and then meaningful impact on the economy and even on the global stage?” he asked.
Isyaku also cast doubt on claims that compulsory rankings would automatically translate into better student performance or stronger staff morale.
“I don’t think it has any direct bearing on student performance, nor will it have a positive bearing also on staff motivation,” he said.
He noted that Nigeria already has a regulatory mechanism for maintaining academic standards through the National Universities Commission, which has responsibility for quality assurance in universities.
The CONUA official further cautioned that a ranking system could have unintended consequences for institutions already operating with limited resources.
He said universities that perform poorly on the table could find it harder to attract students and academic staff, potentially deepening the disparity between well-funded institutions and those facing severe constraints.
“If you now do that ranking, what is going to be the outcome? Those poorly ranked institutions will not attract students, will not attract staff,” he said.
Isyaku also linked institutional performance to autonomy and funding. He noted that highly ranked universities internationally generally operate with significant independence.
“Globally ranked universities are very autonomous institutions,” he said.
He cited the performance of private universities as evidence that stronger financing and operational freedom could improve institutional outcomes.
“It shows how universities, when given free hand to operate, when given funding, can perform a lot of good in the country.”
Isyaku therefore said the government should first define what it intends to achieve through the ranking exercise and establish measurable outcomes beyond assigning institutions positions on a hierarchy.
“So, I think we need to actually identify what the objectives are, what is the outcome, not simply ranking institutions high or low.”
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