In fight against fake higher institutions, regulatory bodies play active role

Illegal higher institutions are said to be detrimental to the society because they deny learners effective education and leave them at the risk of harm since the certificates they offer are neither recognized by employers nor by legitimate institutions. While most of the fake higher institutions were detected and sanctioned alongside their promoters by the […]

Illegal higher institutions are said to be detrimental to the society because they deny learners effective education and leave them at the risk of harm since the certificates they offer are neither recognized by employers nor by legitimate institutions.

While most of the fake higher institutions were detected and sanctioned alongside their promoters by the regulatory agencies, an increasing number of them still offer courses including online programmes and in time, award false degrees, diplomas and certificates.

Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu, said at a media conference that the continuous proliferation of illegal universities, colleges of education and polytechnics masquerading with all sorts of affiliations, has become a source of embarrassment to the government and promised new measures to crackdown on them.

He identified a number of factors to be responsible for the explosion of illegal institutions including the fact that illegal providers were mainly driven by greed to make quick money, without any desire to comply with the required, prescribed regulations.

He also said the existing admission spaces in the universities might not have matched with the number of qualified candidates, which ultimately, led to the problems of insufficient access for the large pool of qualified candidates that sit for the yearly Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations organised by Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). Thus, candidates who could not secure admission through the JAMB were easily attracted to the fake institutions.

“The Federal Government through the National Universities Commission (NUC) has increased access to university education through the increase in the number of licenses granted to establish universities from the initial three in 1999 to the present 165 in 2019,” he said.

He said fake higher institutions, particularly universities, thrive because they have no set standards for entry requirements while the non-existence of specific sanctions for operating illegal tertiary institutions has also contributed to the escalation in the phenomenon of illegal providers of tertiary education.

About 66 false degree-awarding institutions identified to be operating in different areas, have since been closed. Again, 68 fake polytechnics, monotechnics and specialised technical and vocational institutions as well as an undisclosed number of colleges of education have suffered same fate.

The minister said all regulatory agencies in the public education sector, namely, the NUC, National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), have been asked to work with relevant security agencies to ‘immediately crackdown hard’ on all illegal tertiary institutions within their jurisdictions while promoters of such institutions should be apprehended and prosecuted.

In August 2018, authorities at NCCE disclosed the discovery of some centres offering National Certificate of Education (NCE) without permission. Chairman of the governing board, Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi, who made the disclosure shortly after a board meeting in Abuja,  said many ‘NCE centres’ running classes across the country without license  were closed.

A professor of education in the University of Ibadan, and former executive secretary of National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE), Rashid Aderinoye, said although regulatory agencies have tried hard to put a stop to the surfacing of illegitimate higher institutions, increased public awareness campaign and mass education could help parents and students to detect the risk of patronizing such institutions.

He said lack of adequate spaces to accommodate teeming matriculants, every year, has made a number of them to resort to illegal institutions, which at the end of the day, have no admission criteria and quota. “Conventional universities need to expand to be able to accommodate more applicants,” he said.

He also said incessant strikes by lecturers have to some extent, discouraged many applicants from seeking admission into public universities and in the long run, risk joining unapproved institutions.

Professor Aderinoye stated that a good number of illegal schools were promoted by people who were desperate to make money fast and called on the authorities to use quality monitoring to improve the capacities of higher institutions and weed out the menace of unlicensed degree-granting ones.

A lecturer with the Federal College of Education, Zaria, Dr. Ahmed Bello, said regardless of the fact that unapproved colleges more often than not, fell short on standards of education, their promoters consider them as profit-boosting ventures, adding that regulators must adhere to effective guiding principles in the establishment and running of colleges.

He said thousands of students naively joined unaccredited colleges since the real colleges “cannot absorb all the candidates that applied for admission,” adding that admission pressure had increased because candidates that were not admitted by the universities rush to colleges.

He said regulators must be empowered to be effective, such that the interest of students and stakeholders is protected and the reputation of higher education is safeguarded. He further suggested that universities, colleges and other higher institutions should install remedial programmes for thousands of candidates who are unable to gain admission, rather than leaving them defenseless or at the mercy of illegal schools.

Again, the Federal Government has pointed out that even approved higher institutions were found culpable in running unlicensed courses and study centres with unskilled personnel.

The minister said unprecedented population growth has made it not unexpected that education seekers would look for an outlet, should there be any delay by government in establishing enough schools to keep pace with the educational demands of the populace.

The end result has come to be the embracing of “illegally acquired” education through cutting of corners by approved universities which create substandard satellite campuses, study and outreach centres.  Worse still is that these unapproved establishments are usually manned by unqualified or unrecognised personnel.