Despite complaints of poor access to tertiary education in Nigeria, the Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, has said 44.7 per cent of admission spaces were not taken up by candidates during last year’s admission exercise.
Speaking at the 2018 Policy Meeting of the Board with tertiary institutions in Nigeria at Gbangan, Osun State, Oloyede said of the total 1,025,487 spaces available in both private and public universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and Innovations Enterprise Institutions across Nigeria, only 566,641 were filled while 457,846 were unused.
The colleges of education had the highest number of unused slots of 290,097 out of 364,722. Universities had 119,878 unused spaces (of 538,269), while polytechnics had 39,404 (of 112,437) and IEIs, 8,467 (of 9,059).
To address this problem of unused spaces, Oloyede said JAMB would provide a virtual market space for institutions to shop for students not admitted by their first choice institutions.
He urged the Institutions to keep to the admissions timetable to enable the seamless coordination of the process.
He said, “If any institution does not do it’s admission on time, we will withdraw the names of the students and we will transfer them to the market place where others can pick them.
“When we are doing First Choice admission, do your own, even if you are not ready to resume.”
In his speech, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, urged managers of the tertiary institutions to be transparent in carrying out their duties, noting that he had evidence of underhand dealings by some managers.
Adamu said, “Please let the qualities of transparency, honesty, sincerity, equity, loyalty, and commitment to nation building be our guiding principles.
“We should be dissuaded from doing any official business under the table. Heads of tertiary institutions are encouraged to institutionalise the qualities enumerated above.
“A lot of revelations laced with observed lapses and documentary evidence have been brought to my attention. We have extensively consulted on the way forward and I, therefore, urge each institution to abide by the regulations.”
