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Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has kicked against the recent policy of reassignment of candidates against their choices being adopted by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB.
The union said JAMB has made the admission process chaotic and exposed candidates to fraudsters.
ASUU said the admission body must respect candidate’s preferences and choices for tertiary institutions and consider security of lives of applicants, cost, proximity, quality, and rights of the Nigerian child in arriving at any policy.
Upon approval at the recent 6th Combined Policy Meeting on admissions to Degree, Certificate in Education, National Diploma and Innovation Diploma awarding institutions in Abuja, JAMB had pegged cut off marks for admission in the country to 180 and 150 for varsities and others respectively.
While JAMB warned that no institution should go below the marks, the dust raised by last week’s protests at the University of Lagos, UNILAG, over alleged exclusion of over 50,000 prospective students who chose the institution is yet to settle.
The university had increased its cut-off mark from 200 to 250, with approval from JAMB, while only 9,000 applicants were to sit for the Post-UTME conducted by the institution.
Chairman of the University of Ibadan (UI) chapter of ASUU, Prof. Olusegun Ajiboye, who said this while speaking with journalists in Ibadan, also called on Nigerians to join the call for the total scrapping of JAMB, saying it has outlived its usefulness.
He described the policy put in place by JAMB as insensitive and exploitative of the children of the poor, adding that it amounted to abuse of their fundamental human rights of freedom of choice.
He lashed out at the Prof. Dibu Ojerinde-led JAMB Board for being so insensitive to the plights of the Nigerian masses, whose parents have not been paid for months by some governors but are now being forced to pay N1, 000 to know where they are reassigned against their choices.
Ajiboye asked JAMB to respect the Act establishing it (Act 5 (c i-iii), which prescribes that the placement of suitable qualified candidates into tertiary institutions must take into account “the preferences expressed or otherwise indicated by candidates for certain tertiary institutions and courses; the vacancies available in each tertiary institution; the guidelines approved for each tertiary institution by its proprietor or other competent authority.”
In the absence of a substantive Minister of Education, the ASUU boss called on President Muhammadu Buhari to call the JAMB to order so as not to make the children of the masses who populate public schools suffer.
He berated the racket on the sale of scratch cards, which had been mopped up at JAMB offices by agents who now sell it for N1,500 to candidates, urging the President to probe the over N1bn that would be generated what he called ‘unpopular policy’.
According to him, the University of Ibadan for instance, provides a level playing ground for students who scored 200 and above in JAMB examination to compete for the available spaces in the university.
He said: “Candidates choose universities considering quality, cost, proximity, courses of choice, among others. Will Dibu Ojerinde pay for the fees so charged by the institutions (including exorbitant fees in private and state universities) where the candidates have been reassigned?
“If a candidate is reassigned from Lagos to Ondo State, will Professor Dibu Ojerinde foot the bill and expenses incurred and in case of any accident. Who is JAMB protecting; the candidates or their cronies in other institutions? It has to go.
“An institution that asked candidates to make their choices of universities, polytechnic and monotechnics has now turned back to impose tertiary institutions on candidates and is demanding another N1,000 to access information. This JAMB has outlived its usefulness.”
In a related development, Secretary General of Committee of Provosts of Colleges of Education in Nigeria, Prof. Olu Akeusola said the Federal Government should split JAMB Board into three and assign each of them a specific role as regards the conduct of entrance examinations into tertiary institutions in the country.
He said there should be a unit that will conduct exam strictly for students seeking admission into the universities, while each of the two other units should do likewise for the polytechnic and colleges of education.
Prof. Akeusola, who is also the Provost, Michael Otedola College of Primary Education, MOCPED, Noforija-Epe, Lagos State, made the call at the weekend, saying such split was necessary not only to prevent confusion in what determines the cut-off marks for each level of the tertiary education, but also to make the exams more credible and of international standards.
He said it was awkward that those who want to go to university to study medicine, engineering, law or education for example will sit for the same exam with those who want to go to either polytechnic or colleges of education and still be placed on the same grading.
“How can you test a teacher with the same parameter for testing a medical doctor or an engineer? That is why this JAMB’s unified examination to me should be decentralised,” he said.
Akeusola further argued that for JAMB to post candidates to schools other than their preferred choice under unclear terms was tantamount to infringement on their fundamental human rights.
“If a candidate is not qualified by the parameter of a particular institution, such a candidate would need to be told rather than imposing another school on him or her,” he said.
JAMB, yesterday reacted to the criticisms that has attended the decision to allow some universities determine their own cut-off mark, saying such institutions were at liberty to do so.
Head of Media, JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, stated this in a statement made available to journalists.
“The decision to have a national accepted cut-off mark at policy meeting was to serve as a guide and pruning mechanism to give the tertiary institutions qualitative and manageable candidates to choose from a pool of candidates desirous of tertiary education.
“However, universities and other levels of tertiary institutions are at liberty to go higher, but not lower depending on their peculiarities and the performance of candidates that choose them.
“Those candidates who do not meet the cut-off marks of such institutions will be placed in needy institutions within their geopolitical zone depending on available space in such institutions.
“The Board’s aim is to accommodate as many candidates as possible instead of just pushing them to schools we know ab initio doesn’t have the carrying capacity to admit all.
“For instance, University of Lagos with a carrying capacity of about 9,000 has over 60,000 applying to them. The question is what happens to the over 50,000? We have other institutions like that and what we are doing is to ensure that the balance are also placed in other needy institutions,” JAMB stated.
It added that the Board had redistributed the other candidates who have cutoff marks less than what their first choice required to needy institutions and urged candidates and parent to check the Board’s website from Friday, 31st July, 2015 for their names and institutions they are placed in.
Also commenting on the development, Lagos based lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, at the weekend, said it is not possible for parents and their children to set standard for the University of Lagos.
He stated that the institution cannot lower its standard because certain group are protesting over their dissatisfaction with a policy.
Falana, who was speaking in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital urged parents and applicants to consider the legal implication of their actions.
According to him, JAMB is the only agency saddled with the responsibility of setting cut-off standard for institutions in Nigeria going by the law that set it up.
He however urged the authority of the institution to reconcile with JAMB so as to ensure fair play in their dealings.
The legal practitioner also admonished parents to desist from taking their children to what he called ‘miracle centres’ for examinations, saying such students might not be able to defend it when they eventually get to higher institutions.
Meanwhile, JAMB has concluded plans to release names of all candidates who are qualified to sit for this year’s post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination into all public universities against their institutions on Monday August 3.
Disclosing this yesterday, Head of JAMB, Lagos Office, Dr. Beatrice Okorie, said the list might even be released as early as Friday, July 31, but that the grace of extra two days would be to prepare against unforeseen situation.
While advising all the 2015 UTME candidates who meet up with the cut-off marks to check JAMB’s website on that date for their details and the list of universities they have been redistributed to, insisted that the Board would not go back on its new admission policy.
According to her, the policy was to assist candidates not to spend unnecessary money on post-UTME in the universities where they would not be considered for admission due to limited space.
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