About NERD

The National Education Databank is part of the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) programme. NERD is an electronic platform and a one-stop shop for the national management, administration, and preservation of education data, records, documents and audio-visual assets. It shall operate as a set of new services to address specific challenges in the education sector. These include the provision of a central reference point for data consistency covering every aspect of post-secondary education for national planning; perpetual preservation of academic reports and publications; enhancement of the quality of academic reports nationwide through outright elimination of plagiarism and the promotion of attribution; fostering of inter-institution collaboration and positive competition; mitigation of capital flight from previous dependence upon foreign products and services in education data management; the establishment of the Nigerian index of academic publications as a national flagship; a central national repository for equitable access to lecture notes and materials; and, the decisive launch of a systemic quality assurance check nationwide to curtail academic fraud which threatens the integrity of the education sector due to the activities of merchants of fake degrees, ‘arrangee’ qualifications, phoney certificates, bogus unearned honours from unaccredited institutions and diploma mills.

Compliance Requirement for the National Databank (Repository)

Deposit of theses, dissertations, and project reports in the National Databank by students is obligatory in Nigeria. Following the Declaration of Effectiveness, the approved stipulations for mandatory submission of academic outputs (project reports, theses, dissertations, term papers, etc) as provided in Sections 2.3, 4.3(1), and 7.6.11(c), among others, of the approved National Policy for the NERD Programme has become an obligatory requirement in Nigeria from the end of the early pre-digitization period. The Federal Ministry of Education, with the support of the National Universities Commission, the National Board for Technical Education, the National Commission for Colleges of Education, and other key stakeholders will be leading this unprecedented digitalization and the digitization of every single past and present academic record, report and publications ever generated in any of our institutions whether public or private, whether military or civilian. This remains the most audacious attempt ever to aggregate all records and knowledge, past and present, ever produced or generated in our tertiary institutions and post-secondary schools. Through the NERD project, Nigeria will have organic control of its data and its stacks of knowledge in its strategic national interest and for the purpose of economic development, national security, national prestige, and for the benefit of today and future generations of Nigerians.

Nigeria SNIAP

Having observed the increasing financial challenges of publications in High Impact journals with the attendant capital flights, the Federal Executive Council, as a deliberate mitigation strategy, has approved that the NERD system will, in addition, create, host, and administer official special databases of NERD-indexed journals. The indexes shall employ experienced reviewers locally and internationally in order to serve as a credible national equivalent to journal indexes like SCOPUS, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Indonesia Garuda Indexing, SCImago, etc, while NERD-indexed-journals are now designated by the Federal Government of Nigeria as Special Nigeria (National) Indexes of Academic Publications (SNIAP) available to willing Nigerian academics and promoters of institutional journals and shall be acceptable for promotion and research/academic career advancement purposes and peerage privileges presently associated with their foreign equivalents such as SCOPUS, SCImago, etc across all tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Details of this special intervention shall be separately communicated to all Governing Councils and tertiary institutions’ managements by their respective accrediting and regulatory bodies shortly.

Why a National Databank?

In the past two decades, following advancements in computer technology, the country has relied more on foreign countries and overseas business corporations for the organisation and preservation of its academic records and body of knowledge. This undermined national security, eroded national pride, and promoted capital flight. The Nigeria Education Databank is the flagship central Databank for the education sector for the collection, organisation, coordination, distribution, preservation, validation, and verification of Nigeria’s education records, intellectual or academic outputs, and credentials. This National Education Databank is the nation’s official one-stop shop for data consistency, as well as being the first private-sector-led Big Data Project in the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ownership

The NERD system is owned by all post-secondary schools in Nigeria and their corresponding regulatory authorities and library services through the Federal Ministry of Education, and are all entitled to revenues derivable therefrom on a pro-rated basis. Similarly, NERD has been intentionally designed to establish a no-conflict framework aimed at striking a patriotic delicate balance between tertiary institutions’ legitimate autonomy and the overriding strategic national interest of Nigeria. Ownership of deposited items shall remain vested in the original authors, for which the Federal Executive Council has approved the Offtaker’s Monetisation Reward guidelines. Also, well-equipped sectorial Coordinating Centres for the NERD project are to be set up in the headquarters of the regulating authorities such as the National Universities Commission (NUC), the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), as well as the National Library of Nigeria (NLN) while each institution is expected to maintain a NERD Support Desk, among others, in order for NERD to serve as a tool to positively further the objectives of the various education stakeholders.

Who is affected?

By virtue of FEC’s approval, the NERD Policy applies in equal measures to all education delivery institutions in Nigeria regardless of ownership type (public, private, military or civilian) whether within or outside the direct supervision of the Federal Ministry of Education such as Colleges or Schools of Nursing, Agriculture, specialized research centres and institutes, etc. Similarly, in line with FEC approval in the exercise of Mr. President’s power in Council as provided in Sections 2(4)(4) and 16(1)(C) of the NYSC Act, Cap. N84, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, the National Youth Service Corps shall, following this declaration, mobilize, exempt, or refund only students who have fully complied with the NERD standard as defined in the approved regulations enshrined in the NERD Policy regardless of whether they had their education experience within or outside Nigeria. Likewise, the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) is obligated to check for compliance with the NERD Policy as a prerequisite for its services.

Services

  1. National Students Clearing House Service (Obtain National Student Number – NSN/transition from JAMB to a national scholar)
  2. National Education Depository Service (Upload Academic Report)
    1. Electronic System for the Management and Administration of Thesis (eSMAT) Dissertation and Project Reports)
    2. Onboard old project reports, theses and dissertations
    3. View reports and infographics
  3. National Credential Verification Service (Verify)
    1. Verify old documents/Revalidate with Frame QR Code
    2. Enrol a fresh batch of credentials (results, certificates, transcripts, etc)
    3. Verify credentials captured in fresh batches
    4. View reports and infographics
  4. National Similarity Detector and Plagiarism Checker Service (nSDPC) – comply with Mandatory Originality Check (MOC).
  5. The Nigeria Indexes of Academic Publications (NIAP) Service (publish or be a reviewer).
  6. Library Service
    1. ISBN Automated Repository Service – all books ever published in Nigeria are to be captured in the national repository and locked as per the author’s preference
    2. Nationwide Integrated Library and Archival Data (NiLAD) to link all libraries (federal, state, schools, organisations, individuals, etc).
  7. Integrated cross-institution Dissertation, Thesis Examination, Review, and Evaluation (DiTERE) service (for quality assurance).
  8. Central Lecture Note Depository
  9. National Log or Register of Term Papers and Seminar Reports.

NERD Governing Council

  • Minister of Education - Federal Ministry of Education (as Chairman)
  • Executive Secretary - National Universities Commission
  • Executive Secretary - National Board for Technical Education
  • Executive Secretary - National Commission for Colleges of Education
  • Chief Executive - National Library of Nigeria
  • Chief Executive - Nigeria Data Protection Commission
  • Chief Executive – Nigeria Education Repository and Databank Limited
  • Chairperson - Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities
  • Chairperson - Association of Rectors of Nigerian Polytechnics
  • Chairperson - Association of Provosts of Colleges of Education
  • Secretary – Nigeria Education Repository and Databank Limited.

Other Stakeholders

  • Tertiary Education Trust Fund
  • National Youth Service Corps
  • Industrial Training Fund
  • Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN)
  • Nigerian Institute of Science Laboratory Technology (NISLT).

Circular/Regulations/Order/Notification (these are downloadable files)

  1. National Policy on NERD
  2. FEC-approved Declaration of Effectiveness
  3. Important notification from the Federal Ministry of Education to all stakeholders.
  4. Training and Workshop Schedule.

Please visit CIRCULARS – REGULATIONS to download these documents.