Admission crisis hits varsities, only two schools meet deadline

Forty days after the deadline set by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s to tertiary institutions to complete the 2013/2014 admission, only two universities have fully complied with the directive, The PUNCH exclusively gathered on Monday.

The schools are the University of Benin, Edo State and the Federal University, Lokoja, Kogi State.

The non-compliance, analysts say, may result in admission crisis in the institutions, especially with the ongoing strike by lecturers in the nation’s public universities.

Over 1.5 million candidates wrote this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

The Fourth Combined Policy Committee’s meeting on admissions to tertiary institutions, chaired by the former Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai, fixed October 31 as the deadline for the schools to complete the 2013/2014 admission exercise.

The committee, comprising heads of tertiary institutions, met in Abuja on June 18 and fixed the deadline.

Curiously, the board has begun the sale of application forms for the 2014/2015 admission and the examination holds in April 2014.

Specifically, our correspondent gathered that Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and the Petroleum Training Institute, Efurun, Delta State, did not submit any admission list to JAMB.

A source in the board, who craved anonymity, said its leadership was not pleased with the conduct of the institutions.

He said, “Other universities, polytechnics and colleges of education submitted only about 40 to 70 per cent of their students’ intake. They failed to meet the deadline to complete the process. From the look of things, many potential candidates will be denied admission next year owing to the nonchalant attitude of the universities.”

The PUNCH gathered that JAMB might request the Federal Ministry of Education to sanction the errant institutions.

It was learnt that the board would soon write the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, to mete out appropriate sanctions against the affected schools.

When contacted the Head, Public Relations of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, confirmed the development.

He, however, refused to give details of the admission list.

He said, “I can tell you that we have received some admission lists from institutions. But they are not complete.”

Asked if the board would sanction institutions that did not meet the deadline, Benjamin said it was a decision for the JAMB’s Governing Board to take.

He added, “The board will meet very soon. It will look at all the issues and take the best decision in the circumstance.”

He, nonetheless, said the failure to meet the deadline could cause “disruption of academic calendar, psychological imbalance on the parts of parents and students, disruption of plans of JAMB, and could block the chances of candidates who may want to change their admission to another institution.”

The JAMB Registrar/Chief Executive, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, at the meeting in Abuja had said all admissions for 2013/2014 would end by October 31.

Ojerinde said, “All Nigerians must be given opportunity to mix and educate freely in any part of the country.

“Private institutions should however give us acceptable and national ratio they want to adopt in the admission exercise.”

The JAMB boss had also maintained that ratio 45:35:20 for merit, catchment and educationally less developed states for federal institutions, and 40:40:20 for state-owned institutions were still in force and “should be adhered to strictly to ensure national cohesion.”

 Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Gombe State University chapter, has expressed concern over the exodus of Nigerian students to other countries for studies.

Adamu, who criticised the situation, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Gombe on Monday that it was not good for the educational development of the country.

He expressed concern over the movement of the students to other countries that had lesser quality of staff.

He said, “It is shameful if you discover the way Nigerians from undergraduate to postgraduate students are leaving for other countries for the sake of studies. It is not because they have quality staff and other things.

“In Nigeria, we have all it takes to maintain standard in our universities but it is because the government is not serious about putting things in the right way. That is why generally our university system has decayed. A lot of people have left for other countries that give priority to education and this is leading to a very serious brain drain in our system.”

The chairman, who advised the Federal Government to honour its agreement with the union, linked the problems in the nation’s education to frequent crises in the sector.

Adamu added, “The lingering crisis has a very devastating effect on the educational development and general development of the country.”

PUNCH NG