Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) has clarified the guidelines for admission into tertiary institutions for the 2016/17 academic session.
Students who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) seeking admission into the 143 universities (Federal, State and Private Universities), 59 polytechnics (Federal and State) and 83 colleges of education for 2016/17 academic year are getting uneasy because of what some of them have described as unclear admission policy.
However, JAMB has withdrawn the list of recommended candidates for admission earlier sent to the tertiary institutions.
Fabian Benjamin, head of media in JAMB, in a statement, said this was to ensure that the University Senate perform its statutory responsibility of conducting the selection of candidates and refer it to JAMB for confirmation in line with the admission criteria of merit, catchment and educationally disadvantaged states as directed by the minister of education at the policy committee meeting.
The statement stated that the earlier list was sent to help fast track the process of admission in order to allow other tiers of institutions also conduct their admission.
Accordingly, the statement as a result advised the candidates not to panic because it was part of the process of the 2016 admission exercise, while regretting any inconvenience the steps could have caused tertiary institution.
A sample of students who spoke with BusinessDay expressed growing restlessness because they do not quite understand what lies ahead. “I am so confused, I do not comprehend any of these changes and how they will work out in practice,” Joseph Akume, a candidate for admission into the University of Lagos, said.
In the guidelines for admissions into tertiary institutions in Nigeria 2016/17 released early this month (July 8) by JAMB, Dibu Ojarinde, the registrar of the board, said: “Screening should not demand for another test in any form either written, oral, or electronic; candidates are to present their Senior School Certification Examination (SSCE) results/Advanced Level (AL) results for verification and clearing purposes; each candidate is expected to have a minimum of five (5) credits at SSCE including English, Mathematics and any other three (3) relevant subjects relevant subjects to his or her discipline… the screening list has been uploaded on JAMB website… for possible users,” the guidelines stipulated.
BusinessDay’s investigation reveals that some schools are yet to articulate a clear implementation procedure for the guidelines as outlined by the JAMB. “We are yet to convene a meeting to spell out the processes and concrete modalities to enhance the implementation of the guidelines,” Rebecca Okojie, the deputy registrar, University of Ilorin, Ilorin told BusinessDay.
The JAMB’s directives are clear, what some practitioners in the education space worry about is the allegation that some students colluded with some invigilators in the past to cheat and secure high scores at the UTME, only to perform poorly at the post-UTME organised by individual universities.
“I believe there are two things here and both are easy to deal with. The first borders on guidelines for admission into tertiary institutions, which the JAMB has clearly stated in its recent admission policy document,” contended Victor Odumuyiwa, lecturer at University of Lagos.
Odumuyiwa added that the second question which concerns the authenticity of the UTME scores candidates presented would easily be dealt over time. “See, this is not rocket science. There will be no post-UTME test of any kind and weeding out those who cheated their way into the system is quite simple. Before they get to the 200 level, we would have fished them out given their poor academic performance,” the university don said.
