The Federal Government has announced that compliance with the Nigeria Education Repository and Data Bank (NERD) is now mandatory for participation in or exemption from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), as part of sweeping reforms to curb certificate fraud and strengthen academic record integrity.

Minister of Education, Maruf Alausa, disclosed this during a national capacity-building programme on NERD implementation, themed “Strengthening Institutional Compliance and Academic Records Integrity.” He said NERD serves as a national digital infrastructure to standardise, authenticate, and preserve academic records across tertiary institutions.

According to him, enforcement extends beyond NYSC to agencies such as the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), and the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), with compliance required to access their services.

Alausa said the system has preserved nearly 100,000 digital student submissions and onboarded over 250 institutions within four months, enabling real-time credential verification.

He also revealed that the government had investigated and halted the use of fake foreign degrees, leading to the dismissal of affected individuals from the public service.

The minister added that a NERD Annual National Laureate Prize would be introduced, offering ₦5m to ₦20m for outstanding undergraduate and postgraduate research, with the maiden edition scheduled for November.

The reforms come amid persistent concerns over certificate fraud and weak record-keeping systems in Nigeria’s education sector.