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By Chukwuma Umeorah
The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, has said the report of the investigation into the operations of degree mills in the country would be ready and made public in three months.
He emphasised the negative impact of the activities of the degree mills and its effect on the education system and by extension, the country.
The investigation is coming on the heels of an undercover investigation carried out by Umar Audu, a reporter, where he bagged a Cotonou university degree in six weeks, and also participated in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.
The Federal Ministry of Education had earlier announced the suspension of evaluation and accreditation of degree certificates from Benin and Togo Republics as a response. But Mamman assured Nigerians that a committee had been set up and was already investigating deeply into the matter.
“I assure you that this committee would start work immediately and I believe that they would not spend more than 3 months to conclude their report. We are not going to take long because there are innocent people and institutions out there who may suffer the delay.
“The Committee is going to review the operations of the various ministries and agencies responsible for the recognition and accreditation of degrees from outside the country.
“When their work is done,it will be made public and those who are found culpable will be brought to book. That is why we have involved the security agencies in the investigations. It is our responsibility to protect our employers who by chance may end up employing people who do not have the skills that they ascribe to themselves through those certificates.”
Mamman said the problem of certificate racketeering was not peculiar to Nigeria as it is a global problem, but said the ministry, over the years, had been working to forestall their operations.
“The Ministry is aware of this problem and has been able to keep at bay the activities of degree mill purveyors in many ways. The operations of the Nigerian Immigration Service and that of the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) would also be looked into to identify the loophole in the system as all these parties were indicted in the investigative report. “We would ensure there is improved inter-agency collaboration in the recognition and certification of Degrees.”
He cited the report of a committee in 2022 which handled similar events in about eight institutions ran by individuals who tried to set up such degree mills. The minister, however, commended the investigation of the reporter and assured Nigerians of the Ministry’s commitment at sanitizing the system.
