The Federal Government has made participation in Nigeria’s national tertiary education ranking exercise compulsory for all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced the policy on Tuesday 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 new ranking framework was designed to improve quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness across Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
According to the minister, the ranking exercise will provide institutions with clear benchmarks for evaluating their performance, identifying areas that need improvement and measuring progress.
Under the new framework, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will participate in a unified national ranking system. The Federal Government is expected to fund the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
Alausa said the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would begin in September, while the committee would determine when the exercise would be extended to polytechnics and colleges of education.
He added that the government would issue guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally notify vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation would be mandatory.
The minister 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 remained credible and effective.
The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, described the initiative as an important step towards improving accountability and educational standards across the tertiary sector.
She said healthy competition would encourage institutions to assess their performance, identify weaknesses and improve the quality of education they provide.
Ahmad also stressed that both public and private institutions should be included in the ranking exercise, saying it would help establish and maintain minimum standards across the sector.
Chairman of the ranking advisory committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, welcomed the government’s decision.
He said the committee had initially called for greater investment in university education but that the minister had gone further by expanding the ranking exercise to cover polytechnics and colleges of education.
Okebukola expressed optimism that sustained investment, stronger institutional capacity and the new national ranking framework would help more Nigerian institutions improve their positions in international rankings.
The policy comes amid growing pressure on Nigerian tertiary institutions to improve their performance globally. International rankings typically consider factors such as research output, academic reputation, citations, international outlook and institutional resources.
Although several Nigerian universities have gained recognition in international rankings, challenges including inadequate funding, limited research capacity, poor infrastructure and staffing shortages continue to affect the sector.
The expansion of the ranking system is therefore expected to provide a more coordinated approach to measuring the performance, quality and competitiveness of tertiary institutions across Nigeria.
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