Despite complaints of poor access to tertiary education in Nigeria, the Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Is-shaq Oloyede, has said 44.7 per cent of admission spaces were not taken up by candidates in the last admission exercise.
Speaking at the 2018 policy meeting for tertiary institutions in Nigeria held at the brand new Bola Babalakin Hall, Gbangan, Osun State Tuesday, Oloyede said of the total 1,025,487 spaces available in universities,, polytechnics, colleges of education and Innovations Enterprise Institutions both private and public, across Nigeria, 566,641 were filled while 457,846 were unused.
The college’s of education had the highest number of unused slots – 290,097 of 364,722. Universities had 119,878 unused spaces (of 538,269) while polytechnics had 39,404 (of 112,437) and IEIs, 8,467 (of 9,059).
To address this problem of unused spaces, Oloyede said JAMB will provide a virtual market space for institutions to shop for students not admitted by their first choice institutions.
He urged the Institutions to keep to the admissions timetable to enable the seemless coordination of the process.
“If any institution does not do it’s admission on time, we will withdraw the names of the students and we will transfer them to the market place where others can pick them.
When are doing First Choice admission, do your own even if you are not ready to resume,” he said.
In his speech the Education Minister, Adamu Adamu, urged managers of the tertiary institutions to be transparent in carrying out their duties, noting that he had evidence of underhand dealings of some managers.
“Please let the qualities of transparency, honesty, sincerity, equity, loyalty, and commitment to nation building be our guiding principles. We should be dissuaded from doing any official business under the table. heads of tertiary institutions are encouraged to institutionalised the qualities enumerated above.
“A lot of revelations laced with observed lapses and documentary evidence have been brought to my attention. We have extensively consulted on the way forward and I therefore urge each institution to abide by the regulations,” he said.