FG will expel workers with false certificates in public and private organizations

Education Minister Tahir Mamman has pledged to eliminate people working with fake certificates in public and private organizations.

Mr. Mamman made this known while speaking in Abuja on Friday when he received the report of an inter-ministerial meeting.

Inquiry Committee on Grinding of Degree Certificates by Committee Chairman Prof. Jubrila Amin.

On January 9, the Minister of Education inaugurated an inter-ministerial committee to examine the veracity of allegations of degree extortion at local and foreign private universities.

The committee was mandated to review the role of any MDA or its officials in facilitating the recognition and obtaining of fake certificates in question.

Expressing sadness over what was discovered during investigations, Mamman said the ministry would work with relevant agencies to clean up the education sector and eliminate any false trends.

“We cannot afford for a few people to undermine the integrity of our education.

“Some may have fake certificates in public and private organizations that need to be removed. This report is the product of exhaustive research.

“It is sad that someone who should come out of a Nigerian institution with a 2:1 or 2:2 is now flaunting a first-class international certificate.

“The ministry is determined to take measures to clean up the system,” he said.

He promised to take a decisive role in ensuring standards were enshrined in the system, saying “we can’t afford to let our country down when it comes to standards.”

Presenting the report, the chairman of the inter-ministerial committee, Mr Amin, condemned the horrible standards of education in those schools and said that many of the schools that awarded degree certificates were an eyesore.

Amin said the current issues required quick intervention and recommended that all agencies in the sector digitize/automate their system.

He said automating the entire education system was a way to do it in such a way that you could sit in your office and monitor what is happening in all tertiary institutions.

According to him, during our investigation we realized that the current accreditation and results evaluation program is insufficient.

He called for more universities in the country, saying more universities to train PhD holders would help a lot instead of Nigerians going out in search of certificates and ending up getting fake certificates.

He therefore urged the National Universities Commission (NUC) to pay more attention to institutions offering part-time or sandwich programs so that the 2017 saga of centers offering unaccredited courses is not repeated.

“People go and get fake degrees and we have been to those countries and we know what a proper degree looks like, we know what a fake one looks like.

“We have given it to the ministry to examine anyone who presents a certificate from those institutions and everything else is fake.

“It is up to the ministry to discover people with false certificates and deal with them as they see fit,” he said.

(YAYA)