The Federal Government has fixed 15 December 2026 to complete a national ranking of Nigeria’s universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, with universities to be scored on 22 indicators.
The details were disclosed by Prof. Peter Okebukola, chairman of the Nigerian Tertiary Education Ranking Advisory Committee, in a presentation dated 30 September 2026 on Nigeria’s showing in the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Okebukola made the presentation available to The PUNCH.
According to Okebukola, the exercise follows a directive from the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, and covers all three categories of tertiary institution. He said the university weightings had been agreed with the League of Directors of Academic Planning, and that the three sub-sector rankings would be completed before the December deadline.
He said the ranking was meant to stimulate healthy competition among institutions and position the system for stronger global performance in the years ahead.
This is the first time the government’s ranking plan has reached beyond universities. The committee was previously the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee before Alausa expanded its mandate and renamed it in September 2026. Okebukola, a former executive secretary of the National Universities Commission, has said publicly that he welcomed the wider remit.
The expansion has not gone unchallenged. In a separate commentary published in late September, an education analyst argued that placing universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in a single league table amounts to comparing apples and oranges, since the three tiers have different missions. That view sits alongside the committee’s position that a common national framework will lift standards across the board.
The context for the exercise is Nigeria’s most recent international scorecard. The 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, published this week, listed 29 Nigerian universities, up from 24 in the previous edition, making the country the most represented in sub-Saharan Africa. THE said the number of ranked institutions in the region rose from 55 to 69 over the same period.
Covenant University, the University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos shared the top national position, all placed in the global 801 to 1,000 band. Okebukola’s presentation put four other Nigerian universities in the 1,001 to 1,200 category, with a further 32 listed as reporters, institutions that submitted data but did not meet the criteria for a ranked place.
Taken together, that brings the number of Nigerian institutions engaging with the process to 61. Okebukola noted, however, that only 29 of the 328 universities recognised by the National Universities Commission made the ranked tables, a figure that underlines how few Nigerian institutions currently clear the global threshold.
The presentation flagged research funding, publication output, institutional data management and international collaboration as the areas needing sustained attention. It also pointed to differences among institutions in teaching, research quality, industry engagement and international outlook.
These are the same pillars THE uses to assess universities worldwide, which is part of the government’s argument for a domestic benchmark. A national ranking, the committee says, would give institutions a local yardstick to measure themselves against, identify their weak points and plan improvements without waiting on the international tables.
The debut of five universities in the 2027 THE ranking shows the field is widening. Osun State University, the University of Maiduguri, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Kwara State University and Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, appeared for the first time.
There are individual bright spots within the numbers. UNILAG recorded the highest research quality score among Nigerian universities at 67.8, Bayero University Kano posted the strongest international outlook, and Covenant University returned the best industry score, according to THE.
What the ranking will actually reward at home is still being settled. The 22 indicators for universities have been agreed, but the committee is yet to publish the full metrics or the separate criteria for polytechnics and colleges of education, whose timelines it said would be determined once the expanded body is fully constituted.
That gap matters, because the two lower tiers award qualifications on a different basis to universities, and the measures that work for one may not transfer cleanly to another. How the committee resolves that will shape whether the exercise is read as a fair assessment or a mismatched comparison.
For now, the confirmed elements are the December deadline, the 22-indicator university framework, the compulsory participation of all public and private institutions, and Nigeria’s improved standing in the latest THE ranking. The detailed metrics, the sub-sector criteria and the first published national results are still to come, and will be the real test of the framework.