JAMB ‘Jamming’ The Future Of Nigerian Youths – Shehu Sani

The Senator representing Kaduna central, Shehu Sani has accused the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) of “literally jamming the future” of Nigerian youths.

Sani, at a plenary session of the Senate on Tuesday, said the process for which students enter into Nigerian higher institutions was too complicated, hence the need to prune it down.

The lawmaker made the observation while contributing to a motion by Senator by Umaru Kurfi on the “need to revisit the regulatory conflict between JAMB and universities in offering admission in Nigeria.”

He said prospective undergraduates go trough “a series of hardship and suffering” after writing JAMB’s UTME and Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in universities.

“JAMB has been literally jamming the future of our young people, in the very sense that there has been a lot of impediments that has seriously affected their ability to get into the university,” he said.

“But in all honesty, this motion brings to spot light solutions that if supported by this senate will go a long way.Our concern is that after JAMB comes Post-UME that becomes a series of hardship and suffering in the way people get into the universities.

“The problem we face here is peculiar to us, it is easier for a Nigerian to secure admission outside the country than it is here. Why should that be so? I think in this era where we are trying to do everything possible to conserve our foreign exchange, there is a the need to simplify the process in which young people get admission into our universities.”

On his part, Kurfi said instead of simplifying the country’s tertiary educational system; post-UTME has become an “outcry of extortion from candidates”.

“JAMB began to suffer progressive denudation shortly after its inception as some universities admitted students outside the list sent by JAMB, and rejecting candidates with admission letters from JAMB on the ground that they had to comply with their own internal quota and catchment calculation, coupled with the issue of malpractices that plagued JAMB examinations,” he said.

“This new development was aimed at addressing the problem of student quality, it reintroduced and entrenched many of the problems it sought to eliminate through JAMB.

“The integrity of the post -UME examination is open to question as the pecuniary motive of the respective institutions comes so visibly to the fore that there is little pretence about maximising the income flows through this internal examination,” he said.