The Federal Government has stated that only eight universities have been accredited to award degrees to Nigerians in Togo and Benin Republic.

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, made this known on Sunday night while speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme.

Mamman, during a press conference last Friday to mark his one year in office, disclosed that over 22,500 Nigerians obtained fake degree certificates from the two countries, and such certificates would be cancelled.

The minister said the revelation was part of a report submitted to the Federal Executive Council by a committee with a mandate to probe degree certificate racketeering by foreign and local universities in Nigeria.

He added that the development follows the undercover investigation report in which a Nigerian journalist acquired a degree from a university in Benin Republic in under two months and used it to get deployed for the National Youth Service Corps.

Speaking during the programme, the minister said the federal government only recognised three institutions in Togo and five in Benin Republic while identifying others as illegal institutions.

Mamman listed the public universities below as the federal government-approved institutions to offer degree programs in Togo for students from Nigeria.

Universite De Lome

2. Universite De Kara

3. Catholic University of West Africa

The minister also listed five accredited universities authorized to provide degree programs in Benin Republic of Benin for students from Nigeria.

Universite D’abomey-Calavi

2. Universite De Parakou

3. Universite Nationale Des Sciences, Technologis Ingenierie Et Mathematiques

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has adopted 140 as the minimum Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) cut-off mark for admission into universities in 2024.

At its 2024 policy meeting in Abuja on Thursday, the board also adopted 100 for polytechnic and college of education admissions this year.

JAMB hosts an annual policy meeting to set the tone and guidelines for any given year’s admission cycle.

At the meeting, tertiary institution stakeholders meet and agree on a set of admission requirements which JAMB then adopts.

The adoption prevents cases where individual institutions arbitrarily stray from pre-set guidelines during an admission run.

Although institutions can set higher admission marks during competitive cycles, they can not go below the adopted minimums.

At the meeting, Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, said no institution must admit candidates below the minimum cut-off for their category.

He said institutions are also mandated to adhere to the requirements stipulated in the Central Admissions Processing Systems (CAPS).

“Any vice chancellor, provost, or rector discovered to have effected any admission outside CAPS would be severely sanctioned,” he said.

“Such under-the-table admissions contradict the data-driven approach outlined in the four focal areas of the education roadmap of the federal ministry of education.”

Oloyede said all institutions must implement other criteria prescribed by the National University Commission (NUC), the National Board for Technical Education (NBTF), and the National Council for Colleges of Education (NCCE) as appropriate.

He said this is with particular reference to admission quotas, ratios, and specifications meant to achieve quality, accountability, and equity.

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, said on Thursday a new curriculum would be introduced for secondary schools nationwide by September 2024.

Tahir made this known at the ongoing 2024 Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board policy meeting in Abuja.

“We are working hard to ensure that a new curriculum is introduced for secondary schools by September,” Mamman said.

Mamman noted that the exercise has been on for the past year and a stakeholders meeting will be held on August 6,2024.

“It is our plan that by September, this programme will be implemented in all schools, public and private,” the minister said.

Recently, the National Senior Secondary School Education Commission decried the deplorable state of senior secondary schools in the country and called for collaboration to overcome some of the challenges bedevilling the secondary level of education in the country.

The commission listed some of the challenges confronting the sector, including infrastructural deficit, unqualified teachers, obsolete curriculum, and deplorable libraries and laboratories.