Efforts of National Universities Commission (NUC) Towards Effective Global Rankings

The NUC has been working assiduously to improve the global ranking of Nigerian Universities. In 2001 for instance, it developed a set of indicators of verifiable data with the aim of helping prospective students to make career choices. Also, the interest by the government to have a transparent and objective mechanism that would be used to identify centres for excellence that could benefit from preferential funding gave birth to the idea.

The following are the set of indicators developed in 2001:

•  The percentage of academic programmes in a university that enjoyed accreditation status

• The proportion of academics at professorial level to assess quality of academic staff, since full professorship in most universities globally constitutes a mark of quality among academics. The category was also included to encourage lecturers to study for postgraduate degrees

• Research output in peer-reviewed journals, books published by respected publishing houses, innovations and patented intellectual property rights.

•     The proportion of foreign staff

•     The proportion of foreign students

•     Internally generated revenue

•  Staff with outstanding academic achievements intended to establish how a university stimulated and retained quality staff. Some of the accolades that were considered included Nobel prizes, national awards, and fellowships of academies and institutes of sciences, medicine, education and letters. 
• The category gives the standing of the staff of a university when gauged with colleagues at national and international levels,” said Dr Peter Materu, education specialist, World Bank, in his study on higher education quality assurance in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  
  Some years later, precisely, 2010, there was a review of the mechanism for improvement. While some of the indicators were retained e.g. proportion of academic programmes, proportion of academic staff and proportions of international academics and students, others were replaced. 
   A new set of indicators:

• Academic peer review

•  Faculty-student ratio

•  Citations per faculty

•  Graduation rates 

•  Retention of first-year students

• Web impact factor on students 

• Staff,  employer reviews

•  Alumni holding posts of chief executive or the equivalent in Forbes 500 leading International companies.

 Are there impacts?

Despite criticisms from some quarters there has been enthusiasm about the university rankings in Nigeria, especially among the general public. “Some parents, 84% and potential students, 70%  have been turning to the ranking index to identify the best universities in the country and programmes for study,” Okebukola. Employers, 75% of big companies in Nigeria have also been using the annual league tables when selecting graduates from the best-ranked universities amid a graduate glut. The system is also gaining credence among most Vice-Chancellors.  “Academic staff unions also use ranking results to back up requests for improvement of working conditions,” Okebukola. Generally, the effect of the national university ranking has been positive, and it has been used by most tertiary institutions to request more funding from the government to improve learning, teaching and research facilities. The government is not left out too as it has been using the ranking system to identify centres of excellence in various fields.  The NUC estimates that the government has improved learning facilities in public universities by about 30% since the national ranking was initiated.  Lots of thanks to #Wachira Kigotho