The Federal Government says it has uncovered the illegal admission of more than 58,000 students into Colleges of Education across the country, raising fresh concerns over admission irregularities in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja.
He warned that the government would no longer tolerate illegal admissions or other practices capable of undermining the integrity of the nation’s education system.
Alausa said the government had also detected similar admission irregularities in universities and polytechnics nationwide, stressing that institutions found violating admission rules would face appropriate action.
He spoke at the inauguration of a ministerial committee established to strengthen accreditation and quality assurance in tertiary institutions.
The committee, chaired by the immediate past Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, is expected to review existing accreditation and quality assurance mechanisms and recommend measures to curb irregularities across the sector.
He said the figure of 58,000 students was far above the 5,600 initially discovered when the ministry began investigating illegal admissions into Colleges of Education.
He said the development was so disturbing that in one institution, only 8,593 students were legally admitted, while 9,872 were illegally admitted, making the number of illegal students higher than those admitted through approved channels.
The minister said the government would treat the current intervention as a one-time amnesty, stressing that it would not repeatedly legitimise illegal admissions through what he described as “condonement”.
Alausa said the problem was not limited to Colleges of Education, noting that illegal admissions were also taking place in universities and polytechnics.
He estimated that the number of illegally admitted students in universities could be more than 200,000, although the figure is yet to be fully established.
The minister warned that institutions were admitting students beyond their approved capacities and programmes, making it difficult for regulators to determine the actual number of students being trained.
He linked the practice to the poor quality of graduates entering the labour market, noting that employers were increasingly complaining that despite receiving hundreds of applications, only a few candidates possessed the required competence.
Alausa challenged the new accreditation committee to address the loopholes that had allowed institutions to manipulate accreditation exercises by temporarily moving staff, equipment and other facilities to meet regulatory requirements.
Alausa said accreditation must move beyond periodic inspections to a continuous quality assurance system backed by digital technology capable of tracking institutions’ staff, students, facilities and equipment.
He directed that tertiary institutions must be assessed on the facilities, personnel and resources they genuinely possess and can sustainably maintain, rather than on what they hurriedly assemble ahead of accreditation visits.
The minister warned that under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, officials who fail to enforce regulatory standards risk losing their jobs, while private institutions found violating the rules could have their licences revoked.
According to him, the reforms are aimed at restoring credibility to Nigeria’s tertiary education system and protecting students from being admitted into programmes whose qualifications may eventually fail to secure regulatory recognition.
Alausa charged the committee, chaired by Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, to develop practical measures to eliminate existing loopholes and establish a transparent, credible and technology-driven accreditation system across universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education.
