BY DAYO ADESULU

A DELEGATION from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, led by its Registrar, Professor ’Dibu Ojerinde, paid a courtesy call on the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie to discuss issues relating to admission irregularities in the Nigerian University System (NUS).

In a welcome address, Professor Okojie commended the cordial relationship between JAMB and the Commission in the past four years, within which both bodies had been able to check admission-related fraud in the NUS. He also lauded the rebranding that had taken place in the Board, under the leadership of Professor Ojerinde.

The Executive Secretary noted that the number of universities in the country had more than doubled within the past decade and this had increased the responsibility of the NUC. He told the Registrar that the Commission had discovered that a lot of universities were admitting students by means other than JAMB. Some, he said, had also engaged in illegal affiliations, while others had either mounted unapproved programmes or exceeded their carrying capacities, which had led to the overstretching of existing facilities in the universities. In one of the institutions, the Commission had found that a tri-semester system had recently been introduced, which  allowed students graduate in three years whereas the institution’s academic brief had clearly stated that it would operate the regular two-semester structure.

Okojie lamented the adverse effects of admission and academic anomalies on the students who were the most affected. He informed the delegation that President Jonathan had directed that any vice-chancellor of an institution who was found to have mounted unapproved programmes should be disciplined.

He said that the tripartite relationship of the Commission, JAMB and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) had gone a long way to stem fraud in the system.

Professor Ojerinde informed the Executive Secretary that JAMB has a database, which has a comprehensive list of Nigerian universities, programmes they were licensed to run and students admitted into the programme. He added that the database has a mechanism that is programmed to detect names of students from unapproved institutions and programmes, whenever universities forwarded names of graduates to be mobilised for NYSC.

The Registrar stated that the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) remained the only prescribed mode of entry into Nigerian universities, saying that prospective students, who had completed foundation or pre-degree programmes, were also expected to sit for and pass the UTME, to qualify for admission into the university.

He said that the Board was presently working with the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), to organise campaigns in universities, to sensitise people on the negative effects of and penalties for admission-related fraud in the NUS.