By Anita John 
Verification of academic credentials will begin nationwide on Monday, October 6, 2025. This is contained in a service-wide circular issued and signed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, which was addressed to all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), as well as public and private tertiary institutions across the country.
The aim of the new policy is to safeguard education integrity in Nigeria, enhance the global competitiveness of Nigeria’s academic system, enable instant authentication of certificates and awards, provide a one-stop platform that ensures every academic credential is authentic and digitally traceable, and end the era of fake degrees and unearned honours.
Other benefits of the new policy are to make it possible for every credential presented in the country to be easily verifiable at the click of a button, enable the linking of decentralised institutional databases into a federated system, and end the days of weak verification processes that have been compromised in the past.
The enforcement will be implemented through the National Credential Verification Service (NCVS), which operates under the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD).
Accordingly, the directive mandates existing and prospective staff in public and private institutions to obtain clearance from the NCVS before their appointments can be confirmed.
It was stated that each verified credential will have a National Credential Number (NCN) with security codes to make such credentials traceable and to verify their authenticity.
Following Federal Executive Council approval, the NCVS was launched in March 2025 by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, during which he described it as “a decisive move to end fake degrees, phoney honours, and diploma mills undermining Nigeria’s education credibility.”
While corroborating the minister’s stance on the new certificate verification policy, the Executive Director of Communication and Cybersecurity at NERD, Ms. Haula Galadima, disclosed that all verification services are now fully up and running.
“NERD is a federation initiative and the nation’s standard for higher education digitisation,” she said, urging MDAs, tertiary institutions, and private employers to enrol their NERD focal persons and records officers through the onboarding portal.
Galadima stated that NERD administers unique identifiers such as the National Student Number (NSN), the National Credential Number (NCN), and the National Document Number (NDN) to allow for instant authentication of certificates and awards, assuring that “By October 6, fake degrees and unearned honours will no longer slip through the cracks.”
Chaired by the Minister of Education, the NERD Governing Council has representatives of the National Universities Commission, the National Board for Technical Education, the National Commission for Colleges of Education, the Committee of Vice Chancellors, the Committee of Rectors, the Committee of Provosts, the National Library, and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.
The initiative draws its legal backing from Section 10(1) of the Education (National Minimum Standards and Establishment of Institutions) Act, 1985.
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