Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, announced the policy on Tuesday in Abuja during a meeting with the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee, which has now been expanded and renamed the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee.
Alausa said the expanded ranking framework is intended to strengthen quality, accountability, institutional performance and the global competitiveness of Nigeria’s tertiary education system.
According to the minister, the ranking will provide institutions with clear benchmarks for assessing their performance, identifying areas that require improvement and measuring their progress over time. He added that the exercise would also encourage healthy competition among institutions.
Under the new arrangement, universities, polytechnics and colleges of education will be assessed under a unified national ranking framework. 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 commence in September, while the committee would determine the appropriate timeline for extending the exercise to polytechnics and colleges of education. The government will also develop guidelines to institutionalise the exercise and formally communicate the compulsory participation requirement to heads of tertiary institutions.
The minister said the policy forms part of President Bola Tinubu’s education reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda and the Nigeria Education Sector Renewal Initiative.
The Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Ahmad, described the initiative as an important step towards improving accountability and quality across Nigeria’s tertiary education sector.
She said healthy competition would encourage institutions to assess their performance, address identified weaknesses and consistently improve the quality of education they provide.
The ranking exercise is expected to cover both public and private institutions, creating a common framework for comparing institutional performance and establishing clearer benchmarks across the sector.
Alausa also pledged that the Federal Ministry of Education would provide policy direction, funding and capacity-building support to make the ranking exercise credible and sustainable.
The chairman of the ranking advisory committee, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, welcomed the expansion of the framework, saying sustained investment and stronger institutional capacity could help more Nigerian tertiary institutions improve their standing internationally.
Nigeria has recorded an increase in the number of universities .appearing in global rankings. Alausa said in July that 24 Nigerian universities had entered the world's top 1,000, compared with 21 previously.
The new national framework is therefore expected to provide the government and institutions with a more coordinated way of measuring performance while encouraging improvements in areas such as research, academic quality, institutional resources and international competitiveness
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