Degree mill: FG to flush out persons working with fake certificates

The federal government has disclosed that it will flush out persons in public and private organisations working with fake certificates.

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamma, disclosed this on Friday when he received the report of an Inter-Ministerial Investigative Committee on Degree Certificate Milling from the Chairman of the committee, Prof. Jubrila Amin.

Mamman, who expressed sadness over what was uncovered during the investigations, said the ministry would work with relevant agencies to sanitise the education sector and rid it of any fake tendencies.

“We can’t afford to have the integrity of our education soiled by some few persons. It is possible that some are carrying fake certificates in public and private organisations that need to be flushed out. This report is a product of a thorough investigation,” he said.

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He said: “It is sad that someone who should come out from a Nigerian institution with a 2:1 or 2:2 is now parading an international certificate of first class.”

While noting that the ministry is determined to take steps to sanitise the system, he vowed to take decisive actions to ensure standards were enshrined in the system, saying, “We can’t afford to let down our country when it comes to standards.”

Presenting the report, Chairman of the inter-ministerial committee, Prof. Jubrila Amin, decried the horrible standard of education in those schools awarding degree certificates, saying they were an eye sore.

Amin said the problems at hand required speedy intervention, recommending that all agencies in the sector must digitise/automate their system so that they can sit in the office and monitor what is happening in all tertiary institutions.

“In the course of our investigation, we realised that the present programme of accreditation and evaluation of results is inadequate,” he said.

He, therefore, urged the National Universities Commission (NUC) to pay more attention to institutions offering part time or sandwich programmes so as not to have a repeat of 2017 saga of 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. We have given it to the ministry to scrutinise anyone presenting a certificate from those institutions,” he said.