Nigeria’s newly launched National Education Repository and Databank (NERD) has recorded impressive progress, with over 10,000 academic projects uploaded within just three weeks of operation.
By this weekend, the total submissions had climbed to 11,000, including 158 postgraduate entries from 242 active institutions, while more than 40,000 students have been successfully enrolled on the NERD platform.
According to early data, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, tops the list with 990 uploaded theses, followed by Bayero University, Kano, which has 611 submissions. Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State, ranks third with 532 entries. Others making the top ten include Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma (493), Osun State Polytechnic, Iree (479), University of Ilorin (469), Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere Ekiti (462), Kaduna Polytechnic (379), University of Benin (374), and University of Nigeria, Nsukka (282).
The report revealed that Science and Innovation dominate the field of study preferences, with 5,952 submissions, followed by Multidisciplinary (2,091), Engineering and Technology (1,958), Tourism and Entertainment (1,392), Infrastructure and Sustainable Development (952), and Humanities (783). Interestingly, the Science and Innovation category includes contributions from students in the Arts and Social Sciences exploring cross-disciplinary research themes.
Led by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, the NERD programme has so far onboarded 135 tertiary institutions for academic credential verification. Public data from the NERD portal shows that each uploaded work includes the student’s name, supervisor, and head of department, ensuring accountability and transparency.
NERD spokesperson, Haula Galadima, explained that the Federal Government’s objective is to improve supervision quality and transparency in academic research without direct interference. She noted that knowing their names appear on publicly available works would likely make supervisors more meticulous.
She also highlighted that NERD now provides precise tracking metrics to calculate lecturers’ earned allowances, helping the government evaluate the volume of supervisory work done outside teaching and research activities.
The analytics further show that female students slightly outperformed male counterparts in submission numbers, with 6,142 females compared to 4,995 males.
For the first time since independence, Nigeria, under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, has initiated a nationwide academic digitisation scheme to classify, archive, and make accessible all academic research produced in the country’s higher institutions. The vision is to enhance research quality, strengthen institutional standards, and position Nigeria as a global contributor to knowledge and innovation.
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