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

The Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, CON, announced the development in Abuja while meeting with members of the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee (NURAC), which has now been expanded and transformed into the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.

According to Alausa, the expanded ranking system is part of the education reforms of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, being implemented through the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative (NESRI).

He explained that the initiative was designed to strengthen quality, accountability, institutional performance and global competitiveness across Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.

The Minister said the ranking framework would provide institutions with clear benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying areas of weakness and measuring progress over time.

He added that the exercise would also promote healthy competition among institutions and encourage them to continuously improve their standards.

Alausa disclosed that 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 further announced that the Federal Government would provide funding for the exercise through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and develop guidelines to institutionalise the ranking process.

The Minister said the Federal Ministry of Education would also formally communicate with vice-chancellors and heads of other tertiary institutions to inform them that participation in the ranking exercise is compulsory.

Speaking earlier, the Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Sa’id Ahmad, described the development as a major step towards strengthening accountability, quality assurance and performance across Nigeria’s tertiary education system.

She said healthy competition among institutions would encourage them to objectively assess their performance, identify gaps and take concrete steps towards improving the quality of education they provide.

Professor Suwaiba emphasised that the ranking exercise should cover both public and private institutions, noting that it would provide an effective mechanism for establishing and maintaining minimum standards across the sector.

She assured members of the committee of the Ministry’s full support, stressing that the exercise would enable institutions to better understand their strengths and weaknesses while driving measurable improvements.

Also speaking, Chairman of the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee and former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, said the committee’s engagement with the Minister followed a memorandum congratulating the Tinubu administration on the growing number of Nigerian universities gaining international recognition.

According to Okebukola, the committee had also called for increased investment in university education to sustain and accelerate the progress being recorded by Nigerian institutions.

He explained that the Minister’s response went beyond the committee’s original proposal, leading to the expansion of NURAC’s mandate to include polytechnics and colleges of education.

Okebukola expressed optimism that the new national ranking framework, coupled with sustained investment and stronger institutional capacity, would enable more Nigerian tertiary institutions to improve their positions in international rankings and compete favourably with leading institutions globally.

Reaffirming the Ministry’s commitment to the initiative, Alausa pledged that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide the policy direction, funding and capacity-building support necessary to make the ranking exercise credible, sustainable and impactful.

He said the Ministry would work closely with the committee to facilitate in-service training and institutional capacity-building programmes for tertiary institutions across the country.

The Minister expressed the expectation that the new framework would result in significantly more Nigerian institutions achieving greater visibility and recognition in subsequent international ranking exercises.

The development marks another major step in the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to reposition Nigeria’s tertiary education system, strengthen institutional accountability and improve the global competitiveness of Nigerian higher education.