Admission Hardships for UTME Candidates
Last week, Nigerians, especially students seeking admission into the country’s universities and other tertiary institutions, received with shock the unpalatable news that over 365,000 candidates, out of the 867,000 that made the 180 admission cut-off points and above in this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME)’ will not be admitted into any of the tertiary institutions in the country.
Disclosing the worrisome news at the end of the first UTME Technical Committee meeting on Admission, the Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Professor Dibu Ojerinde, told Nigerian parents and students that “admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria, would be an issue of survival of the fittest”.
Coming at a time when hopes have started rising that the introduction of the UTME might ease the chaotic admission problems hitherto experienced in the country, Ojerinde’s disclosure, is most unfortunate, just as it is worrisome.
This is because, nothing new seems to have happened as a staggering 366,000 Nigerian students who have struggled hard to make the stipulated cut-off marks would have to wait to write another UMTE next year to get admission for no fault of theirs but because “admission is not going to be automatic and because spaces are not sufficient”.
In his statistical analysis, Ojerinde had told Nigerians that the combine capacity of all the Universities, Polytechnics, Monotechnics and Colleges of Education in the country is only 527,000.
This, to us, is abysmally low, especially with over one million candidates seeking admission every year. The Graphic is worried that about 366, 000 candidates must wait for next year to try their luck. It is a bad development that is capable of endangering the future of the young minds.
In this period of armed robbery and kidnapping, leaving the youths jobless and without admission for a year, can be disastrous for the country. An idle mind, they say is the devil’s workshop.
The government has no plan to engage these youths that are roaming the streets. Additional 366, 000 youths into the already congested streets of Nigeria could bring incalculable consequences.
Over 90 percent of candidates seeking admission every year prefer public universities and tertiary institutions, because it is more affordable. The tuition fees of the private universities are obviously prohibitive and out of the reach of many candidates. Those that have been denied admission every year as a result of limited capacity have no alternative than to wait for another time.
Very few Nigerians can pay the sum of 350, 000 or 400, 000 a session for education in the private universities. The situation Ojerinde was actually describing was that of those seeking admission into public universities and tertiary institutions.
In as much as we appreciate the liberty of every candidate to choose the institution of his choice, there seems to be congestion in some universities while other universities are starved.
For example, in the on-going admission exercise, unimaginable number of candidates applied to Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), University of Lagos and Ahmadu Bello University, while on the other hand, no candidate applied to Institute of Management Training (IMT), Enugu while only 13 candidates applied to the Mohammed Goni University, Maiduguri.
It is a very sad thing for the development of education in Nigeria if about 366,000 young men and women are again added to the existing staggering number of students who would again be sitting for examination against the next admission.
It is against this background that The Graphic seeks the timely intervention of the Federal Government to address the situation. A timely action of constructive engagement could deliver the youths from frustration and the trauma of seeking admission annually without success.
The government at all level must find a way of meaningfully engaging the youths to reduce the negative effects of joblessness and inability to secure admission.