LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, SAN, said the federal government is devising moves to weed out those parading fake certificates from the system.
The minister made this known while receiving the report of the inter-ministerial committee on degree mills on Friday at his office in Abuja.
Voiceofnaija.ng had reported this year that the government setup a committee to investigate the activities of over 100 private universities and some foreign varsites in Benin Republic and other countries following an undercover report published by Daily Nigerian newspaper.
The report exposed inefficiencies in acquiring degrees in some of the accredited universities.
“We can’t afford to have the integrity of our education swayed by a few people.
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“It is possible that some are carrying fake certificates in public and private organisations and need to be flushed out. This report is the product of a thorough investigation.
“It is sad that someone who should come out of a Nigerian institution with a 2:1 or 2:2 is now parading an international certificate of first class.
“The ministry is determined to take steps to sanitise the system,” he said.
He pledged to take a decisive role to ensure standards were enshrined in the system, saying that ‘we can’t afford to let down our country when it comes to standards’.
He called for more universities in the country, saying that more universities to train PhD holders would help a lot rather than Nigerians going outside in search of certificates while ending up getting fake certificates.
He, therefore, urged the National Universities Commission to pay more attention to institutions offering part-time or sandwich programmes so they don’t have a repeat of the 2017 saga of the centres offering unaccredited courses.
“People go and get fake degrees and we have been to those countries and we know what a proper degree looks like; we know what the fake one looks like.”
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Mamman expressed regrets in what the committee revealed during the inspection, and assured that the ministry would throw out anyone found culpable.
“We have given it to the ministry to scrutinise anyone presenting a certificate from those institutions and anything else is fake.
“It is up to the ministry to find out people with fake certificates and deal with them in whatever way they deem fit,” he said