In a sweeping reform aimed at combating certificate racketeering and restoring credibility to Nigerian degrees, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has mandated that compliance with the new Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) Policy is now compulsory for all graduates seeking to participate in or be exempted from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Effective October 6, all prospective corps members—whether graduating from a Nigerian university, polytechnic, or an institution overseas—must provide proof of NERD compliance to receive their NYSC call-up.
The Enforcement Hammer: No NERD, No NYSC
The directive, officially conveyed via a circular from the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, invokes provisions in the NYSC Act to enforce the new requirement.
The core of the compliance hinges on graduates depositing their final academic outputs, specifically thesis or project reports, into the NERD system. This is designed to serve as:
- Anti-Fraud Check: An inviolable, time-stamped “yearly independent proof of continuous academic enrolment and affiliation” to curb certificate fraud and the abuse of academic honors.
- Quality Assurance: A mechanism to raise the bar on academic output nationwide.
Restoring Integrity and Rewarding Excellence
This reform goes beyond fighting corruption; it aims to professionalize scholarship. Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, previously stated that the NERD Policy applies equally to all education institutions, including public, private, military, and specialized schools.
Critically, President Tinubu also approved an innovative academic output monetisation and reward mechanism. This feature, proposed by the Education Minister, ensures that students and their supervising lecturers can potentially earn lifetime revenues from their deposited academic work, creating a financial incentive for academic rigor.
The NERD platform is set to radically transform academic supervision. Haula Galadima, spokesperson for NERD, explained that every deposited item will feature the full names of the student, supervisor, co-supervisor, and Head of Department.
“If our eminent scholars are aware that their names will appear next to those of the students they supervise on a globally available digital platform, there is the likelihood that each lecturer would up his or her standard,” Galadima stated. “Very few lecturers would want their names associated with poorly produced academic works.”
The directive is being enforced immediately. Key bodies like the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) are now required to provide data exchange support to facilitate seamless onboarding and data validation for the nationwide digital repository.
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