Alausa Makes National Ranking Compulsory For All Tertiary Institutions

The Federal Government has expanded Nigeria’s national tertiary education ranking exercise to cover universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, with participation now compulsory for all institutions in the country.

Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji 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.

Alausa said the move was part of the administration’s ongoing reforms under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI), aimed at improving quality, accountability and competitiveness across the tertiary education system.

He said the unified ranking framework would give institutions measurable benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying weaknesses and tracking improvements, while also encouraging healthy competition.

Under the new arrangement, the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities is expected to begin in September. The committee will determine the timeline for extending the exercise to polytechnics and colleges of education.

The minister said the Federal Government would support the exercise financially through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), while the Ministry would develop guidelines to institutionalise the ranking system.

He added that vice-chancellors and heads of polytechnics and colleges of education would be formally informed that participation in the exercise was compulsory.

The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Sa’id Ahmad, described the expansion as an important step towards strengthening accountability and quality assurance in the sector.

She said competition among institutions could encourage them to evaluate their performance, identify gaps and continually improve the quality of education they provide.

Suwaiba stressed that the exercise should cover both public and private tertiary institutions, arguing that a comprehensive ranking system would help establish and maintain minimum standards across the sector.

She assured the committee of the ministry’s support, noting that institutions would be better positioned to understand their strengths and weaknesses and work towards measurable improvements.

Chairman of the former NURAC and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, said the committee’s meeting with Alausa followed a memorandum congratulating the Tinubu administration over the increasing global recognition of Nigerian universities.

Okebukola said the committee had also called for greater investment in university education to sustain the progress recorded in international rankings.

According to him, the minister’s response went beyond the committee’s initial proposal by extending the ranking mandate beyond universities to include polytechnics and colleges of education.

He expressed optimism that increased investment, stronger institutional capacity and the new ranking framework would help more Nigerian institutions improve their standing in global rankings.

Alausa, in turn, pledged that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the policy direction, funding and capacity-building support required to make the exercise credible and sustainable.

He said the ministry would also work with the committee to organise in-service training and other capacity-building programmes for tertiary institutions.

The minister expressed the expectation that the reforms would enable significantly more Nigerian institutions to gain international recognition and compete more effectively with leading institutions globally.