Kuni Tyessi in Abuja
The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abdullahi Yusufu Ribadu, has charged vice-chancellors of Nigerian universities to make sure that Nigerian universities stay nationally related and globally aggressive by way of high quality assurance, digital transformation and analysis commercialisation.
Ribadu gave the cost on Tuesday on the opening of the 2026 NUC Retreat with Vice-Chancellors of all Nigerian universities held on the Idris Abdulkadir Auditorium, NUC, Maitama, Abuja.
He stated the retreat, holding on October 13-14, 2026, supplies a platform to reassess insurance policies and tackle challenges confronting the Nigerian college system at a time of speedy modifications and exponential developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The govt secretary stated the fee below his management has strengthened its operational pointers, together with new pointers for the award and use of honorary doctoral levels with sanctions for defaulting universities, and launched Post Matriculation Monitoring and Carrying Capacity visits to enhance admission processes.
He stated the NUC Policy Development Strategy Committee (NUC-PDAC) has accomplished the Blueprint 2.0 for the speedy revitalisation of Nigerian college schooling, whereas the fee is creating a twenty first Century Strategic Plan because it transits from Annual Performance Evaluation (APER) to Performance Monitoring System (PMS).
Ribadu introduced plans to institute publish accreditation monitoring visits to strengthen programme accreditation.
He stated the fee has consummated a number of initiatives to spice up analysis, together with the ACE Alliance platform uniting 20 Africa Centres of Excellence (ACEs) in Nigeria, a four-volume compendium of analysis outputs, and integration of TETFund’s Tertiary Education Research and Application Services (TERAS) platform with the Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN) on the directive of the minister of schooling.
The NUC boss stated the fee is creating a National AI Roadmap and Policy Framework and dealing to determine a Division for Research Commercialisation.
He disclosed plans for a world tour for choose vice-chancellors to universities in Europe and Asia to discover world traits in analysis commercialisation.
On digital transformation, Ribadu stated NUC has deployed e-NUC as a transformative platform to automate its complete workflow and is creating accreditation software program to enhance transparency and knowledge administration.
He pressured that college management requires imaginative and prescient, integrity and accountability, and urged VCs to make sure selections are guided by due course of and engagement with workers, college students, councils and stakeholders.
While acknowledging funding challenges, he urged universities to discover revolutionary useful resource mobilisation by way of partnerships with non-public sector, alumni and growth companions, noting NUC’s partnerships with World Bank, Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) and African Development Bank (AfDB) to reposition the NUS for excellence.
“The future of Nigerian higher education requires bold leadership, innovative thinking and collective responsibility,” Ribadu stated.
