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The federal government yesterday said it had released full payment of the Consolidated Academic Tools Allowance (CATA) to academic staff of federal universities, polytechnics, and Colleges of Education for January to August 2026.

Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed the payment shortly after inaugurating the Ministerial Committee on Accreditation.

Alausa warned heads of tertiary institutions against compromising the integrity of accreditation exercises, saying officials who manipulate the process risk losing their jobs while private institutions could have their licences revoked.

Alausa, also yesterday, directed all federal universities in Nigeria to move their advancement offices from the offices of registrars to the direct supervision of the vice chancellors.

CATA is a financial allowance provided to academic staff to support the purchase of essential tools and materials required for teaching, research, and other academic activities.

Alausa said the payment was in accordance with the provisions of the 2025 Federal Government–Academic Staff Union of Universities (FGN/ASUU) agreement and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to its implementation.

He said, “The Office of the Minister of Education is happy to announce that the full CATA payment has now been released by the federal government from January to August 2026 to all universities, all polytechnics and colleges of education.

“All these institutions should have received notification to start paying CATA to all academic staff.”

The minister added that payment to non-academic staff was also being processed.

“And also, the payment to non-academic staff, we’re hoping that these funds will be made available, hopefully, in the next few weeks,” he added.
Alausa said the payment was another indication of President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to improving the welfare of academic and non-academic staff in the country’s tertiary institutions.

“President Bola Tinubu made a commitment to ensuring that the quality and welfare of our staff are prioritised. He has prioritised the welfare of our staff,” he said.

Alausa said the administration’s education reforms extended beyond staff welfare, stating that significant investments are also being made in infrastructure across tertiary institutions, as well as in basic and postgraduate education.

“Beyond prioritising the welfare of our staff, he has also significantly invested in infrastructure at all our tertiary institutions and also basic and postgraduate education,” the minister said.

He added that the administration was committed to ensuring that Nigerian children received quality education that could compete with standards anywhere in the world.

Alausa said, “This is a president that believes so much in education. He has delivered beyond his promises to ensure that every single child in this country gets the highest quality of education comparable to anywhere in the world.”

Meanwhile, Alausa warned heads of tertiary institutions against compromising the integrity of accreditation exercises, saying officials who manipulate the process risk losing their jobs while private institutions could have their licences revoked.

Alausa issued the warning yesterday in Abuja, at the inauguration of the Ministerial Committee on Strengthening the Accreditation and Quality Assurance System for Tertiary Institutions.

He said the government would no longer tolerate institutions that presented inflated or misleading records of their academic capacity during accreditation exercises, stressing that the quality of graduates produced by Nigerian tertiary institutions must reflect the standards approved by regulatory agencies.

According to him, the consequences of weak accreditation are already evident in the difficulty employers face in finding qualified graduates.
He stated, “People say they want to hire engineers. They will have 500 candidates, but they wouldn’t be able to get two, three, four or five qualified applicants. That’s the damage we’re doing to this university.

“But guess what? This Ministry of Education is not going to let this continue. Other presidents, other governments may have allowed this to continue, but we are not going to let this continue.”

The minister also announced that the federal government would end the practice whereby institutions temporarily borrow academic staff, equipment and facilities from other institutions to meet accreditation requirements.

His position comes amid controversy surrounding the accreditation of the law programme at Atiba University, Oyo State.

In August, the Council of Legal Education imposed a 10-year moratorium on the university’s law programme, citing inadequate facilities as well as the admission and graduation of students without the requisite approval.

The development has left affected students and their parents seeking government intervention, including possible transfers to accredited law faculties to prevent years of study and financial investments being lost.

Alausa said accreditation must provide an accurate picture of an institution’s actual and sustainable capacity rather than a temporary representation assembled solely for an accreditation visit.

He said, “An institution should not be able to prepare a temporary picture of itself simply for the purpose of an accreditation visit.
“Sadly, this is what persists in the majority of instances.”

He said the government would tackle the practice of temporarily moving academic and non-academic personnel between institutions or presenting them for accreditation before they are returned to their original institutions.

The same measures, he said, would apply to the temporary movement, borrowing or presentation of laboratory equipment, workshop resources, library materials, and other facilities solely for accreditation purposes.

According to the minister, whatever an accreditation team sees and verifies must represent the institution’s genuine and sustainable capacity.
The minister said the reform was designed to strengthen the credibility, integrity, transparency, efficiency, and sustainability of accreditation exercises across universities, polytechnics, and Colleges of Education.

He said the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), and National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) had critical responsibilities in protecting the quality of tertiary education.

Alausa stated, “An institution should not meet prescribed standards only when the NUC, NBTE or NCCE accreditation team is expected to visit. Those standards should be met every day of the year.

“With a robust digital accreditation platform, much of the institutional information required for accreditation can be continuously maintained and periodically verified.

“Before an accreditation team arrives, the accrediting agency should already have reliable information on institutional staffing, facilities, laboratories, workshops and other equipment.

“The physical visit will remain important, but it should increasingly serve to validate verified data rather than begin the verification process from scratch.”

The minister said the committee’s mandate was not to weaken the existing accreditation system, but to modernise and strengthen it through transparent, efficient, evidence-based, and difficult-to-manipulate processes.

He directed the committee to develop mechanisms for verifying the authenticity and continuous availability of academic and non-academic staff presented for accreditation.

The committee is also expected to establish mechanisms for verifying the ownership, functionality, adequacy, accessibility, and sustained availability of facilities and equipment presented by institutions.

Alausa said technology would be deployed to transform accreditation from a predominantly manual and periodic exercise into a digital, data-driven and continuously verifiable system.

He called for the use of geospatial mapping, geotagging, and appropriate digital identification technologies for physical infrastructure, laboratories, workshops and major equipment.

“Critical equipment presented for accreditation should be capable of being digitally identified and linked to a specific institution and physical location,” he said.

He blamed the situation partly on the tolerance of irregularities under previous administrations but assured Nigerians that the Tinubu administration would no longer allow such practices to continue.

Responding, Chairman of the Ministerial Committee and former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Is-haq Oloyede, pledged the committee’s commitment to addressing abuses in the accreditation process.

Oloyede said accreditation should not be treated as an exercise for which institutions temporarily prepare, stressing that continuous monitoring is critical to ensuring that standards are maintained beyond accreditation visits.

He said the committee would also examine how regulatory and professional bodies could better integrate their accreditation processes and agree on relevant criteria to prevent situations where students completed programmes but were unable to proceed to professional training or registration.

Similarly, Alausa, yesterday, directed all federal universities in Nigeria to move their advancement offices from the offices of registrars to the direct supervision of vice chancellors.

Alausa gave the directive in Abuja while speaking at the opening of the inaugural National University Advancement Programme Forum organised by the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF), in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education, for vice chancellors and officials of advancement offices in federal universities.

He stressed the strategic importance of university advancement offices to institutional development and financial sustainability; and directed vice chancellors to immediately communicate the new arrangement to their colleagues.

“Take the advancement offices away from under the registrar and bring them under the vice chancellor’s office,” he stated
According to him, universities should also ensure stability in their advancement offices by appointing directors for a minimum tenure of five years, renewable at the discretion of the institution.

He stated, “You should put a tenure of at least five years for your director of advancement which, at your liberty, can be renewed. The final beneficiary will be your institution, your students and, more importantly, you. It is your legacy, so protect them.”

The minister also urged vice chancellors to rebuild their advancement offices by recruiting qualified personnel and avoiding frequent changes in leadership and staffing.

He called on universities to develop institutional memory by maintaining adequate staffing levels in their advancement offices rather than relying on a single officer who could eventually retire.

“Don’t just put one person in your advancement office. They will retire at some point. You don’t want to start all over again. You start building institutional memory,” he said.

Alausa disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Education would support the deployment of a technology platform developed by NHEF to assist universities in building and managing their advancement data.

He said the platform would be vetted by the ministry before being transferred to the federal government, adding that the government would bear the cost of its deployment.

According to him, “Each institution would have its own login and retain ownership of its data, while the Federal Ministry of Education would not have access to the individual institutional data.”

The minister also emphasised that sustainable university financing could not depend solely on government funding or internally generated revenue.

He said universities must explore blended financing involving government investment, research funding, endowments, philanthropy, alumni support, industry partnerships and other credible sources of institutional finance.

“Government funding alone is not the answer; neither is internally generated revenue alone. The answer to a sustainable future lies in blended financing,” Alausa said.

The minister said the responsibility of stakeholders was now to build a sustainable university system capable of serving future generations.
Earlier, Chairman of NHEF, Wale Adeosun, said the organisation was established in 2004 with support from the MacArthur Foundation to help Nigerian universities become financially self-sustaining.

Adeosun stated that the foundation initially worked with Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Bayero University, Kano; University of Port Harcourt; and University of Ibadan, before expanding its work to include the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and University of Lagos.

He stated that despite NHEF’s 22-year existence, the forum marked the first significant formal interaction between the foundation and the Federal Ministry of Education.

Adeosun commended Alausa for recognising the importance of university advancement and alumni engagement in strengthening institutional financing.

He said universities possessed a major untapped resource in their alumni, stressing that systematic identification and engagement of alumni could significantly reduce institutions’ dependence on government funding.

Speaking on the impact of the programme, Proessor. Chinwe Alisi, Director of Linkages and Advancement at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, explained that the training had exposed gaps in the institution’s advancement structure.

Alisi said the university had previously focused largely on linkages, leaving the fundraising and advancement component underdeveloped.
She said the institution subsequently developed an advancement framework and donor policies to provide guidelines for engaging donors and managing donations.

Similarly, Director of the Directorate of Advancement and Linkages at the National Open University of Nigeria said the workshop had broadened her understanding of the role of advancement in university administration.

She stated that advancement offices could work closely with vice chancellors to attract additional funding, support, and goodwill for their institutions.

Director of the Directorate of Advancement and International Education at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, also emphasised innovation and stronger institutional support as key takeaways from the programme.