The Federal Government has banned recipients of honorary degrees from prefixing “Dr” to their names in official, academic, or professional usage.

It declared that the use of the title by such recipients constitutes a misrepresentation of academic credentials, which will henceforth be treated as academic fraud, with attendant legal and reputational consequences.

The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, while briefing State House correspondents on two Federal Executive Council approvals that had not been announced at the last cabinet meeting, which held on April 30.

Alausa said the FEC approved a uniform policy for the award and use of honorary degrees by Nigerian universities.

The policy, he explained, is designed to end what he described as decades of indiscriminate conferral of degrees for political patronage and financial gain, and to restore public confidence in the integrity of academic titles.

 

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