NUC: Only 30 Percent Of UTME Candidates Can Be Admitted

The National Universities Commission says only about 30 percent of the 1.7 million candidates that participated in the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination can be admitted into Nigerian universities.

The NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, said this in Abuja while appearing before the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and Tertiary Education Trust Fund on Wednesday.

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Rasheed explained that following the limited spaces in the country’s higher institutions, admission crisis was inevitable.

He hinted at a regulatory conflict between the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, and the universities.

“Out of about 1.7 million candidates who took the UTME, it is just about half a million that can be admitted into our universities. The crisis of admission in this country is inevitable. Unless we expand spaces, we shall continue to have an admission crisis in this country. Every examination has its own problem. We believe that the JAMB examination is credible and all of us operating in the system respect the results of the UTME,” he said.

“It is not about making money for the universities. JAMB is an excellent guide, but you cannot rely on it 100 per cent. There is a need to further examine the candidates for objectivity and to make the entire system credible.”

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Also speaking, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB Registrar, dismissed suggestions that there was conflict between the board and universities.

Oloyede said most of the candidates who sat for its examination did not have the required qualifications to gain admission.

He said, “It is not true that we have 1.7 million candidates that are ready to go into the Nigerian university system. Out of the 1.7 million that took the UTME this year, not more than 30 per cent of them have the five credits in their Senior School Certificate Examination required to go into the university.

“About 80 per cent of candidates at the point of sitting do not have the O’Level at all. They are awaiting results. So when we are building our theories and analysis, we need to be very cautious. If you score 400 over 400 and do not have the O’Level, you cannot come into the university.”

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