Subscribe: Gist E-Paper
Nigeria's digital education drive has reached a major milestone, with the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) surpassing 400,000 digitised theses, dissertations and student projects, strengthening efforts to preserve academic research and improve credential verification nationwide.
Latest figures from the repository show that more than 410,000 academic works had been uploaded by early September 2026, while over 115,000 academic credentials had been verified and assigned National Credential Numbers (NCNs).
The initiative, under the Federal Ministry of Education, is designed to create a central digital platform for preserving research outputs and enabling the verification of academic qualifications issued by tertiary institutions.
The development is being driven as part of the Federal Government's education digitisation programme under President Bola Tinubu's Renewed Hope Agenda and supervised by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa.
According to NERD statistics, 907 institutions have enrolled on the platform, with 629 currently active.
The participating institutions comprise 259 universities, 163 polytechnics, 179 monotechnics, 178 colleges of education and 130 other post-secondary institutions.
The platform also covers 2,020 faculties and 9,626 departments, with thousands already contributing visible academic submissions.
Among institutions, the University of Benin, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Ekiti State University, the University of Calabar and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka rank among the leading contributors.
Several polytechnics, including Kwara State Polytechnic, Kaduna Polytechnic, Auchi Polytechnic, Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa and Federal Polytechnic Nekede, also feature prominently in the repository's rankings.
At the faculty level, Ahmadu Bello University's Faculty of Education leads the chart, while departments such as Mass Communication and Public Administration across several institutions are among the highest contributors.
NERD data indicate that undergraduate projects account for the overwhelming majority of submissions, with more than 409,000 undergraduate works compared to about 1,500 postgraduate submissions.
The repository also reveals that female students currently account for the larger share of visible research submissions, with over 228,000 entries compared to about 181,000 submitted by male students.
The credential verification component of the platform has equally expanded, with more than 115,000 academic certificates authenticated and assigned unique National Credential Numbers to improve the integrity and traceability of qualifications.
Education stakeholders say the repository addresses the long-standing challenge of research materials remaining inaccessible in departmental libraries and institutional archives by providing a central national database.
Beyond preserving research, the platform is expected to support policy formulation, improve access to scholarly works, strengthen academic record management and promote innovation across Nigeria's tertiary education sector.
Officials say the repository will continue to expand as more institutions digitise their academic records, with the government positioning it as a key pillar of efforts to modernise higher education and promote research-driven national development.
