FG makes national Tertiary education ranking compulsory

Federal Government has made participation in the national tertiary education ranking exercise in Nigeria compulsory for all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in the Country .

The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, announced this on Tuesday in Abuja during a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee, which has now been expanded and renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
He said the new framework was designed to improve quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
According to him, the ranking will provide institutions with benchmarks to assess their performance, identify areas requiring improvement and measure their progress, while encouraging healthy competition.
He said the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would commence in September, while the committee would determine when the exercise would be extended to polytechnics and colleges of education.
The minister added that the government would develop guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally communicate to vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation was compulsory.
Under the new arrangement, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will operate under a unified national ranking framework, with the Federal Government expected to fund the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
Alausa said the policy was part of President Bola Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda and the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.
He also pledged that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide policy direction, funding and capacity-building support to ensure that the ranking exercise was credible, sustainable and impactful.
The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, described the initiative as a significant step towards strengthening accountability and quality in Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
She said the ranking would cover both public and private institutions and help schools identify their strengths and weaknesses while driving measurable improvements.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the ranking advisory committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Emeritus Prof. Peter Okebukola, said the expansion of the committee’s mandate would enable polytechnics and colleges of education to participate in the national performance assessment.
He expressed optimism that sustained investment, stronger institutional capacity and the new ranking framework would help more Nigerian institutions improve their positions in international rankings.
The policy comes amid concerns over inadequate funding, research capacity, infrastructure, staffing and other challenges affecting the global competitiveness of Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The compulsory ranking therefore marks a shift from voluntary participation to a coordinated system in which institutions will be expected to provide data and meet nationally defined performance benchmarks.