(Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa. Photo by TheFact Daily)
The Federal Government is overhauling how tertiary institutions are accredited.
Education Minister Dr Tunji Alausa warned schools against showing borrowed staff, equipment and facilities during accreditation exercises.
The government wants to change accreditation from something done every few years into a continuous digital system that can actually verify what universities, polytechnics and colleges truly have.
The minister said accreditation should show the real capacity of institutions, not a fake picture put together just for the accreditation team visit.
Currently, many institutions prepare a temporary setup just to impress accreditation teams.
They move staff from other schools, borrow equipment and resources, and then return everything after the accreditation process is finished.
The government wants this to stop.
Dr Tunji Alausa said whatever an accreditation team sees must be what actually exists at that institution and is available to students all year round.
The government will use technology like digital mapping and digital identification to track equipment and verify staff.
Equipment shown for accreditation will have unique digital records showing where it is and what condition it is in.
This will prevent institutions from moving the same equipment between schools for different accreditation visits.
For staff, the government will create a system using national identification numbers to verify that people presented as full-time employees actually work at those institutions.
The system will catch situations where the same person is presented as working full-time at multiple schools.
The minister said the current accreditation system is outdated because it only happens every three to five years.
Instead, institutions should maintain good standards year-round rather than just preparing when accreditation teams are coming.
The government plans to build a digital platform where all institutional information is stored and verified.
Accreditation teams will use this platform to check information before visiting schools.
Physical visits will still happen but will mainly confirm what is already in the system rather than starting from scratch.
A committee has been set up to design a new accreditation framework that will work for all tertiary education regulators.
The goal is to make accreditation credible, transparent, efficient and based on actual evidence instead of what institutions claim to have.
