By Emeka Mamah
KADUNA— REGISTRAR of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, said, yesterday, that only 61 percent of the 867,000 candidates that passed this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination, UTME, by scoring the cut-off marks of 180 and above would be admitted in the nation’s tertiary institutions due to lack of space.

Ojerinde said although 527,000 candidates were successful, only 366,000 would be placed while about 161,000 might not get admissions in the country this year.

The registrar spoke in an interview with newsmen during the combined technical committee meeting on admission to degree, National Diploma, Nigeria Certificate of Education, NCE, and Higher National Diploma awarding institutions which held at the Kaduna Polytechnic.

Ojerinde said that unless access to tertiary institutions was increased, “we will continue to have this whole lot of people waiting endlessly for admissions,” noting that most candidates did not apply for admission into some private institutions because of the high fees charged in such schools.

Describing this year’s admission into tertiary institutions as “survival of the fittest”, he said that total spaces available for admission was just about 527,000 adding that the committee was meeting to select the first set of candidates into tertiary institutions with most of the institutions attending with the list of their new candidates.

Ojerinde said the secretary and chairman of the panel would meet on the lists and decide whether the candidates had met the set criteria for admission or not, noting that names of successful candidates would be on the internet by next week.

Cut-off points

He said: “With this 180 cut-off points, we have about 867,000 candidates who made 180 and above, and yet the available space is just about 527,000, so the remaining 340,000 candidates will have no place to go. That is the point, except access to tertiary institutions is increased, we will continue to have this lot of people waiting endlessly for admission.

“One of the beauties of this UTME is that we have brought them together and we are saying that they can go to any institution. If university doesn’t work, college of education may work, if not polytechnics or mono-technics may work.

But I am not saying that it is to be for everybody because the spaces available are still not sufficient.

“The schools without candidates to admit are mostly private institutions, but by the time candidates discover that they do not have any other place to go, they will go to these private institutions because it is a matter of setting your priorities right.

“I cannot give you the names of these institutions now; they are so many. Some of them do not have any candidates. The Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu is one of them. Mohammed Goni College of Legal and Islamic Studies, Maiduguri, has only 13 candidates.

Admission is not automatic because the spaces are not sufficient. You have to try again next time if you do not get admitted this year; it is the survival of the fittest.”

He, however, added that some of the successful candidates would be spread to the schools that had no candidates to admit, pointing out that the University of Lagos, UNILAG, Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife, Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria;  topped the lists of institutions with  more candidates seeking admissions.