The Federal Government has taken a major step to safeguard the integrity of Nigeria’s education system with the deployment of the Nigeria Education Repository and Data Bank (NERD), a national digital platform designed to secure, digitise, and authenticate academic records across tertiary institutions.
The Honourable Minister of Education, Maruf Tunji Alausa, CON, announced the initiative during the National Capacity Building Programme for institutional representatives, describing NERD as a critical national infrastructure for protecting academic credentials and strengthening education data governance.
According to the minister, the platform aligns with the Federal Government’s reform agenda under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by ensuring reliable digital preservation and verification of student records.
Within four months of its rollout, NERD has preserved nearly 100,000 digital student submissions, integrated over 250 tertiary institutions, and enrolled more than 133,000 students and 6,800 lecturers on the platform.
Dr. Alausa highlighted that the system also addresses certificate fraud, citing recent investigations that uncovered cases involving fraudulent foreign credentials obtained from unaccredited institutions.
A statement by the Director of Press and Public Relations at the Ministry of Education, Boriowo Folasade, disclosed that the Ministry further announced that participation in NERD will become a prerequisite for eligibility in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, ensuring that only verifiable credentials are accepted for service.
The Federal Government reaffirmed its commitment to building a transparent, digitally verifiable, and globally respected education system.
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