RismadarVoice Reporters, September 1, 2027
The Federal Government of Nigeria has made participation in the national tertiary education ranking exercise compulsory for all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, announced the policy on Tuesday in Abuja during a meeting with members of the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee.
The committee has now been expanded and renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee to reflect its broader mandate.
Alausa said the new ranking framework was aimed at improving quality, accountability, institutional performance and the global competitiveness of Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
According to him, the exercise will provide institutions with clear benchmarks for evaluating their performance, identifying areas of weakness and tracking improvements over time.
He said the framework would also encourage healthy competition among tertiary institutions.
Under the new arrangement, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will participate in a unified national ranking system, with funding for the exercise expected to come through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa
Alausa disclosed that the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would begin in September, while the advisory committee would determine when polytechnics and colleges of education would be incorporated into the exercise.
He said the government would develop guidelines to formally institutionalise the ranking system and notify vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation would be mandatory.
The minister explained that the initiative formed part of the education reforms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration under the Renewed Hope Agenda and the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.
He also assured that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide policy direction, funding and capacity-building support to ensure the exercise remained credible, sustainable and effective.
Alausa added that the ministry would collaborate with the advisory committee to organise in-service training and capacity-building programmes for tertiary institutions withto improveincreaseance and increasing the number of Nigerian institutions gaining international recognition.
The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, described the initiative as an important step towards strengthening accountability and improving educational standards across the tertiary sector.
She said competition among institutions would encourage them to regularly evaluate their performance, identify shortcomings and take steps to improve the quality of education they provide.
Ahmad also stressed that the ranking exercise should cover both public and private institutions, arguing that a comprehensive system would help establish and sustain minimum standards across the sector.
She said the exercise would enable institutions to better understand their strengths and weaknesses while promoting measurable improvements as Nigeria’s tertiary education system continues to grow.
Chairman of the ranking advisory committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, said the committee’s meeting with the minister followed a memorandum congratulating the Tinubu administration on the growing number of Nigerian universities receiving international recognition.
Okebukola said the committee had also advocated increased investment in university education to sustain the progress recorded by Nigerian institutions.
He noted that the minister’s decision went beyond the committee’s original proposal by extending the ranking framework to polytechnics and colleges of education.
This expansion led to the transformation of the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee into the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
Okebukola expressed optimism that increased investment, stronger institutional capacity and the new national ranking framework would help more Nigerian institutions improve their positions in international rankings.
He said the initiative would also give Nigerian tertiary institutions greater confidence to compete with leading institutions around the world.
