The new policy was announced on Tuesday in Abuja by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, during a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee (NURAC). The committee’s mandate has also been expanded to cover the entire tertiary education sector.
Following the expansion, the committee has been renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee, reflecting its new responsibility for coordinating the ranking of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Alausa said the new framework was intended to strengthen the quality and accountability of tertiary institutions while improving their institutional performance and competitiveness both nationally and internationally.
According to the minister, the ranking exercise would provide institutions with “clear benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying areas requiring improvement and measuring progress.”
He said the system would also promote healthy competition among institutions, encouraging them to identify shortcomings, improve their operations and demonstrate measurable progress in teaching, research, infrastructure and other areas of institutional performance.
The policy represents a significant shift in the Federal Government’s approach to tertiary education assessment, as the ranking exercise will no longer be limited largely to universities. Under the new arrangement, all three major categories of tertiary institutions will be assessed under a unified national framework.
Alausa disclosed that the 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would begin in September, while the newly expanded committee would determine when polytechnics and colleges of education would be incorporated into the exercise.
“The 2026/2027 ranking exercise for universities would commence in September, while the committee would determine the appropriate timeline for extending the exercise to polytechnics and colleges of education,” he said.
The minister further stated that the government would establish formal guidelines to institutionalise the ranking system and ensure that all institutions understand their obligations under the new policy.
He said “the government would develop guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally communicate to vice-chancellancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions that participation was compulsory.”
The Federal Government is expected to finance the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), with the Ministry of Education providing the policy framework and necessary institutional support.
Alausa said the ministry would provide the “policy direction, funding and capacity-building support” needed to ensure that the ranking exercise was credible, sustainable and capable of producing meaningful improvements across the sector.
He also announced plans for training and institutional development, saying the ministry would work with the advisory committee to facilitate “in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes across tertiary institutions.”
The objective, he explained, was not merely to rank institutions but to use the process as a tool for continuous improvement and to increase the number of Nigerian institutions capable of earning international recognition.
The minister linked the initiative to the education reforms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration under the Renewed Hope Agenda, which are being implemented through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.
Competition to Drive Improvement
The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, described the expanded ranking exercise as “a significant step towards strengthening accountability and quality across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.”
Ahmad said competition among institutions could play an important role in improving the quality of education, provided institutions used the results of the ranking to identify and address weaknesses.
“Healthy competition is essential to encouraging institutions to assess their performance, address identified gaps and consistently improve the quality of education they provide,” she said.
She stressed that the ranking framework should cover both public and private tertiary institutions, arguing that a comprehensive system would provide a basis for establishing and maintaining minimum standards across the sector.
According to her, the exercise would enable institutions to gain a clearer understanding of their “strengths and weaknesses” while encouraging them to pursue measurable improvements.
The inclusion of private institutions is expected to ensure that the ranking system provides a broader picture of Nigeria’s tertiary education landscape rather than focusing exclusively on government-owned institutions.
Committee Welcomes Expanded Mandate
Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, chairman of the ranking advisory committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, said the meeting with Alausa followed a memorandum submitted to the government by the committee.
Okebukola explained that the committee had congratulated the Tinubu administration over the increasing number of Nigerian universities securing recognition in international rankings.
The committee, he said, had also urged the government to increase investment in university education to consolidate the gains already recorded and enable more institutions to improve their international standing.
However, according to Okebukola, the minister’s response went beyond the committee’s original proposal.
Rather than limiting the ranking initiative to universities, the government decided to extend its scope to polytechnics and colleges of education, resulting in the transformation of NURAC into the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
Okebukola expressed optimism that “sustained investment, stronger institutional capacity and the new national ranking framework” would enable a greater number of Nigerian institutions to make substantial progress in international rankings.
He said the framework would position Nigerian tertiary institutions to “compete confidently with leading institutions globally.”
Pressure for Global Recognition
The new policy comes against the backdrop of growing pressure on Nigerian tertiary institutions to improve their positions in international rankings.
Global ranking systems typically consider a range of indicators, including research output, academic reputation, citations, international outlook, institutional resources and other measures of academic performance.
While an increasing number of Nigerian universities have begun appearing in international rankings, the sector continues to face challenges that could limit its ability to compete with institutions in countries with significantly higher levels of investment in education and research.
These challenges include inadequate funding, weak research capacity, insufficient infrastructure, staffing constraints and limited resources for international collaboration.
The Federal Government’s decision to extend the national ranking exercise to polytechnics and colleges of education therefore broadens the scope of performance measurement and could provide policymakers with a more comprehensive picture of the strengths and weaknesses of Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
The compulsory nature of the exercise is also expected to mark a departure from a largely voluntary approach to institutional participation.
Under the emerging framework, institutions will be expected to provide relevant data and engage with nationally defined performance benchmarks. The information generated through the exercise could subsequently serve as a basis for identifying areas requiring intervention, strengthening institutional capacity and tracking improvements over time.
For the government, the broader ambition is to transform ranking from a simple measure of institutional position into a mechanism for driving quality, accountability and competitiveness throughout Nigeria’s tertiary education system.