Ekiti, Bayero universities lead in submissions as Nigeria begins digitisation of students’ dissertations

Over 12,000 Nigerian graduates have successfully uploaded their final year research projects to the Nigerian government’s recently established National Education Repository and Databank (NERD), a month after the portal went live on 14 October.

According to a PREMIUM TIMES review of the portal on Wednesday, the Ekiti State University (EKSU) leads with 980 project submissions, comprising 974 undergraduate and six postgraduate entries.

It is followed by Bayero University, Kano (BUK), with 643 undergraduate entries and zero postgraduate entries, as well as the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) with 568 undergraduate entries.

Other institutions at the top of the uploads list are: Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State, (563); Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State (512); Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, Osun State (498); Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna (481); Bamidele Olumilua University of Edu. Science and Tech. Ikere Ekiti, Ekiti State (469); University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State (406) and University of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State (321).

The portal showed that 243 of 879 enrolled institutions are active on the portal.

A review of project submissions revealed that 12,082 undergraduate and 169 postgraduate thesis and dissertations have been uploaded.

The entries, however, comprise only of individuals who graduated this year.

The NERD’s spokesperson, Haula Galadima, said one of the strategic objectives of the thesis digitisation, classification, and archiving scheme was to enhance the quality of the dissertations’ supervision without directly meddling in the process.

Ms Galadima stated that lecturers were likely to be more thorough with their supervisory work if they were aware that their names would accompany those works and would be available to or be seen by other researchers, captains of industry and entrepreneurs globally.

“NERD now has precision metrics to track earned allowances computation in any institution in Nigeria, and this will help the government to see the quantum of supervisory works being done by our lecturers outside their rigorous class teaching schedules, field, or laboratory work,” she said.

NERD Policy

The NERD policy went into effect on 6 October, according to an 8 August circular issued by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume.

The policy is aimed at centralising the data of all certificates issued by Nigerian tertiary institutions for verification by issuing a unique national credential number (NCN) to each certificate. The NCN is to be issued to each certificate after submissions by the tertiary institutions.

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The policy, approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in February, mandates all tertiary institutions to upload details of graduates. It also mandates the graduates of Nigerian tertiary institutions to upload their research project to the NERD portal.

This upload is mandatory before graduates can register for the mandatory National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC). However, it has been temporarily waived for prospective NYSC members as it fell “within the transitional period and their mobilisation processes had started before the deadline (was) set”.