By Felix Khanoba
Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, says participation in Nigeria’s national tertiary education ranking exercise will now be compulsory for all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education across the country.
Alausa announced the policy in Abuja during a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee (NURAC), which has now been expanded and renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
The minister said the broader ranking framework was part of President Bola Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda and was being implemented through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI).
According to him, the initiative is designed to improve quality, accountability and institutional performance while enhancing the global competitiveness of Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
The minister explained that the ranking would give tertiary institutions measurable benchmarks for evaluating their performance, identifying areas of weakness and tracking improvements, while also encouraging healthy competition among institutions.
A statement issued on Tuesday by his Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Ikharo Attah, said the minister revealed that the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would begin in September.
Alausa added that the committee would determine the appropriate timeline for extending the exercise to polytechnics and colleges of education.
He also disclosed that the Federal Government would provide funding for the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), develop guidelines to institutionalise the ranking process and formally notify vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation would be compulsory.
Speaking earlier, the Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Sa’id Ahmad, described the initiative as a major step towards improving accountability and quality across the tertiary education sector.
She said healthy competition among institutions would encourage them to evaluate their performance, identify gaps and continually improve the quality of education they offer.
Professor Suwaiba said the ranking exercise should cover both public and private institutions, stressing that it would provide a mechanism for establishing and sustaining minimum standards across the sector.
She assured the committee of the ministry’s support, saying the exercise would enable institutions to identify their strengths and weaknesses and achieve measurable improvements as the country’s tertiary education system continues to expand.
Also speaking, 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 meeting with the minister followed a memorandum congratulating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration on the increasing number of Nigerian universities gaining global recognition.
He said the committee had also urged the government to increase investment in university education to accelerate the progress recorded by Nigerian institutions.
According to Okebukola, the minister’s response went beyond the committee’s initial proposal by expanding NURAC’s mandate to include polytechnics and colleges of education.
He said the expansion led to the transformation of the committee into the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
Okebukola expressed optimism that sustained investment, improved institutional capacity and the new national ranking framework would enable more Nigerian tertiary institutions to advance in international rankings and compete favourably with leading institutions worldwide.
Reaffirming the ministry’s commitment to the initiative, Alausa said the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the policy direction, funding and capacity-building support needed to make the ranking exercise credible, sustainable and impactful.
He added that the ministry would collaborate with the committee to organise in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes for tertiary institutions.
The minister expressed the expectation that the measures would lead to significantly more Nigerian institutions achieving greater recognition in subsequent international ranking exercises.
