Sir: The House of Representatives during its plenary on Wednesday November 16, resolved to stop tertiary institutions from using both the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) as criteria for securing admissions. The motion was sponsored by Hon. Ademori Kuye (APC, Lagos).
To my utmost surprise, the lawmaker did not suggest an alternative for conducting tertiary institutions’ admissions.
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It is obvious that our tertiary institutions cannot admit all eligible students. According to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and JAMB, out of over 1.5 million students that sit for JAMB every year, not more than 500,000 applicants actually gain admission. The situation only improved marginally with the establishment of some federal universities during the Jonathan administration. Even then, only two out of every five prospective students are able to secure placement based on the universities’ current carrying capacities.
Of course, if our tertiary institutions have the space to admit the entire students who apply to various courses, there would have been no need to conduct any examination to cut the number of applicants. Interestingly, the House of Representatives actually attempted to scrap the post UTME in 2017; then, universities simply adopted other strategies for selecting eligible students until the process was restored at some point.
Using students’ WAEC/NECO to determine the eligibility of the students for admission would make the already fraud-prone SSCE an open pool for cheaters to swim. It may invariably lead to high level of malpractices during the WAEC and NECO as students, seeing it as the determinant of their admission fate, would do anything just to pass.
The post UTME/JAMB examinations is very essential, in fact, vital to tertiary institutions’ admissions. Given the ratio between the capacities of the universities to the number of applications, it is the only appropriate and convenient method to sieve out the most eligible students to be admitted.
On the observation by the sponsor, Hon. Kuye, that students pay to purchase the JAMB forms and still pay for post UTME, may I suggest that the federal government assume the funding of the admission processes to lighten the burdens of parents, particularly indigent parents and students. In the end, the institutions can only admit students based on their respective capacities.
Considering the increasing number of qualified applicants that are unable to get admission spaces each year, the federal government will do well to establish more tertiary institutions and also provide more facilities and staff in the existing institutions to cater for the ever increasing number of applicants.
- Rabi Isyaka Rabiu, Bayero University, Kano.
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