… by Make-Believe Accreditation
By Oloye Ray
On the day an accreditation team arrives, a university can suddenly look different.
A laboratory that students have complained about for months may appear fully equipped. Machines that many students have never touched may be arranged neatly inside a laboratory. Additional lecturers may appear on departmental lists or around classrooms, giving the impression that the institution has enough academic hands to teach its students.
For a few days, the university appears ready.
Then the accreditation team leaves.
And, if the equipment was borrowed, it goes with them.
If lecturers were temporarily moved from another institution, they return.
What remains are the students — the same students who must continue their education with whatever resources the university actually owns.
This is the uncomfortable reality behind the Federal Government’s latest attempt to overhaul accreditation in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
The Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Tunji Alausa, has warned universities, polytechnics and colleges of education against presenting borrowed staff, equipment and facilities during accreditation exercises.
Speaking in Abuja during the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening Accreditation and Quality Assurance Systems for Tertiary Institutions, Alausa said the system must no longer allow institutions to create an attractive picture for inspectors that disappears once the inspection is over.
“An institution should not be able to prepare a temporary picture of itself simply for the purpose of an accreditation visit. Sadly, this is what persists in the majority of instances,” he said.
For a student, however, that “temporary picture” can have permanent consequences.
The student who needs the laboratory every day
Consider a student studying engineering, medicine, science or another programme where practical training is central to learning.
The student does not need a laboratory because an accreditation team is visiting.
The student needs it because the course requires practical knowledge.
An engineering student must understand how machines work. A science student must conduct experiments. A health student must develop practical competence. A technology student must learn to use equipment that may later become part of their professional life.
When those facilities exist only to impress an accreditation team, the student is effectively being denied part of the education for which tuition, accommodation, transportation, textbooks and other expenses have been paid.
That is why Alausa’s warning goes beyond a regulatory argument.
The minister said institutions had been involved in the temporary movement or presentation of personnel and resources for accreditation.
“We must similarly address the temporary movement, borrowing or presentation of equipment, laboratory facilities, workshop resources, library materials and other infrastructure solely for accreditation purposes,” he said.
The implication is straightforward: what an institution shows regulators must be what students can actually use.
When the lecturer disappears
The problem is not limited to equipment.
Students also need lecturers.
A university may have a programme approved on the assumption that it has enough qualified academic staff to teach and supervise students.
But if lecturers are temporarily moved from elsewhere to satisfy an accreditation requirement, the numbers presented to regulators may not reflect the institution’s everyday reality.
That can translate into overcrowded classes, inadequate supervision, cancelled practical sessions and students struggling to find lecturers to guide their projects.
A student writing a final-year project does not need a lecturer only when an accreditation team is visiting.
The student needs supervision throughout the research process.
The same applies to postgraduate students who require academic mentors, researchers who need institutional support and undergraduates who need teachers available to explain concepts they do not understand.
A borrowed lecturer may help an institution pass an inspection.
He or she cannot permanently solve a staffing shortage.
The bigger danger: a certificate without competence
Perhaps the most troubling consequence is what happens after graduation.
A student can leave university with a degree certificate and still lack the practical skills expected of someone who has completed the programme.
That creates problems not only for the graduate but also for employers.
Alausa himself pointed to the consequences of poor-quality tertiary education, saying employers can struggle to find graduates with the skills they need.
“People say they want to hire engineers. They will have 500 candidates, but they wouldn’t be able to get two, three, four or five qualified applicants. That’s the damage we’re doing to this university,” he said.
That statement captures the human cost.
A young graduate may spend four or five years in university, pay fees and other expenses, complete examinations and receive a certificate, only to discover that the workplace demands skills the institution failed to provide.
The graduate then has to start another cycle of training.
For a family that sacrificed heavily to fund the education, this can be devastating.
Parents pay too
Behind every university student is often a family making sacrifices.
Some parents pay school fees from salaries earned over many years. Others borrow money, sell property, depend on relatives or combine several sources of income to keep their children in school.
They make those sacrifices because they believe a university education will provide their children with knowledge, skills and better opportunities.
If an institution secures accreditation by temporarily assembling resources but cannot sustain those resources afterwards, the family may unknowingly be paying for an education different from the one regulators approved.
The consequences can therefore include wasted money, delayed employment, poor professional preparation and declining confidence in Nigerian degrees.
It also damages honest universities
There is another victim: institutions that genuinely invest in education.
A university that spends money establishing laboratories, recruiting qualified lecturers and maintaining facilities throughout the year is carrying a much heavier burden than one that temporarily assembles resources for inspection.
If both institutions receive similar regulatory approval, the system creates an unfair incentive.
The message becomes dangerous:
Why invest continuously when temporary preparation can produce the same result?
That is precisely the culture accreditation reforms should eliminate.
What should government do?
The minister’s proposed solution is to move accreditation away from being an occasional event and towards continuous, digital and evidence-based quality assurance.
That approach could change the system significantly.
Alausa said technology should be used to verify infrastructure, equipment and personnel rather than simply accepting institutional declarations.
“Technology should enable us to move from declarations to verification and from assumptions to evidence,” he said.
The government has proposed measures including geospatial mapping, geotagging and digital identification.
Critical equipment, according to the minister, should be digitally identifiable and linked to a particular institution and physical location, with records showing its location, status and other relevant information.
That means a university should not be able to borrow laboratory equipment from another institution, move it into its own laboratory for inspection and then return it afterwards without the regulator knowing.
Verify the lecturers too
The same technology-driven verification should apply to academic staff.
Government should establish a reliable database showing each lecturer’s qualifications, employment status and institutional affiliation.
A lecturer should not be presented as permanent staff in multiple institutions at the same time.
The minister has proposed a comprehensive digital identity and staff verification framework, potentially linked to existing national identity infrastructure and other government databases, subject to data-protection requirements.
But technology alone will not solve everything.
Regulators should also conduct random, unannounced inspections.
If institutions know exactly when accreditation teams are coming, they have time to prepare a performance.
Unannounced visits would provide a more realistic picture.
Students should also have a voice.
Regulators should confidentially ask students whether the equipment exists, whether laboratories are functional, whether lecturers attend classes and whether facilities presented during accreditation are actually available throughout the academic year.
After all, students are not spectators in the accreditation process.
They are its primary beneficiaries.
Accreditation should not be a performance
Ultimately, the issue is bigger than borrowed equipment.
It is about whether Nigeria wants an education system where institutions are rewarded for appearing capable or one where they are required to remain capable.
A university should not become well equipped because an accreditation team is coming.
It should be well equipped because students deserve access to the facilities required by their programmes.
A department should not suddenly acquire enough lecturers for an inspection.
It should maintain sufficient qualified academic staff throughout the year.
A library should not be filled temporarily for accreditation.
It should contain the books and digital resources students need every day.
The Federal Government’s proposed reforms therefore present an opportunity to change the culture of accreditation from inspection-day preparation to continuous accountability.
The minister’s message is clear: what regulators see must correspond with what students actually receive.
“We must ensure that when an accreditation team visits an institution, what it sees and verifies should represent the actual and sustainable capacity of that institution, not an arrangement assembled for the accreditation exercise,” Alausa said.
That distinction matters.
Because when the accreditation team leaves, the borrowed laboratory can disappear.
The borrowed lecturer can return to another campus.
The temporary library can be dismantled.
But the student remains.
And for that student, the consequences of a false picture of educational quality can last long after the accreditation team has gone.
