The federal government has raised the alarm over massive illegal admissions into Nigerian tertiary institutions, disclosing that more than 258,000 students were admitted outside approved processes by universities and colleges of education.
The Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, disclosed this in Abuja at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions, chaired by the immediate past Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Professor Is-haq Oloyede.
Alausa said about 58,000 students were illegally admitted to colleges of education, while the number in universities was estimated at no fewer than 200,000.
He described the scale of illegal admissions as a “shame,” warning that the federal government would no longer legitimise such irregularities through repeated amnesty or “condonement.”
The minister said the government initially expected a proposed one-off amnesty for illegally admitted students in colleges of education to cover about 5,600 beneficiaries. However, the exercise revealed that about 58,000 students were affected nationwide.
He said the situation was even more alarming in some institutions, citing one in which 8,593 students were legally admitted, while another had 9,872 admitted illegally.
Alausa said the development reflected a deeper crisis in the tertiary education system, particularly the practice of admitting students beyond approved institutional capacities and programmes.
He warned that the consequences extend to the labour market, where employers increasingly struggle to find suitably qualified graduates despite receiving hundreds of applications for advertised positions.
The minister also warned heads of tertiary institutions and officials involved in manipulating accreditation exercises that they could lose their jobs, while private institutions risk having their licences withdrawn.
He said institutions would no longer be allowed to create a temporary picture of adequate capacity only when accreditation teams visit.
According to him, universities and other tertiary institutions would also no longer be permitted to borrow academic staff, laboratory equipment, workshop resources or library materials from other institutions simply to meet accreditation requirements.
Alausa stressed that whatever an accreditation team sees and verifies must represent an institution’s genuine and sustainable capacity throughout the year.
His warning comes amid concerns over accreditation of programmes in some institutions, including the Law programme at Atiba University in Oyo State.
In August, the Council of Legal Education imposed a 10-year moratorium on the university’s Law programme due to inadequate facilities and the admission and graduation of students without requisite approval, leaving affected students and parents seeking government intervention and possible transfers to accredited institutions.
Alausa announced that the federal government would transform accreditation from a largely manual, periodic exercise into a digital, data-driven, and continuously verifiable process.
He said the National Universities Commission, the National Board for Technical Education, and the National Commission for Colleges of Education would strengthen mechanisms for verifying institutional staff, facilities, and equipment.
The minister said physical accreditation visits would remain necessary but would increasingly be used to validate already verified data rather than begin the verification process from scratch.
He directed the committee to develop systems to verify the authenticity and continuous availability of academic and non-academic staff presented for accreditation, as well as the ownership, functionality, adequacy, accessibility, and sustained availability of facilities and equipment.
Alausa also advocated geospatial mapping, geotagging and other digital identification technologies to track laboratories, workshops, infrastructure and major equipment.
He called for a comprehensive digital identity and staff verification framework to establish the presence and institutional affiliation of personnel presented during accreditation.
