As the quest for access to higher education rises in the country, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is considering admission access to students who may have scored lower than the 180 cut off mark, in response to request by some higher institutions for consideration of such candidates.

This move, it said, would address and fill reasonable percentage of students in various quotas of the institutions, and improve access for higher education in the country.

According to a speech delivered by Is-haq Oloyede, the JAMB Registrar, at the second technical committee meeting on 2016 admission to tertiary institutions on Monday in Owerri, “a large number of institutions, particularly the budding ones, have applied for a waiver to enable them admit candidates who in some instances scored below 180 marks.”

“For some, this may sound unreasonable with the largely false impression that a large percentage of those who score above 180 and are qualified for admission cannot find any placement in our institutions, but I think this cry needs attention, otherwise, some of these institutions, whether public or privately-owned, may soon begin to wobble or even close shops,” Oloyede said.

The Registrar noted that it would be counter-productive and even defeat government policy of expansion of access to higher education and manpower development.

He informed that the board had studied the trend of admissions and had come up with a finding that hardly do the institutions collectively fill their quota annually.

According to him, “Indeed, in some cases, up to 50 percent of approved quota is wasted particularly by upright institutions which do not circumspect the rule.

Unfortunately, a large number of institutions flagrantly disregard the cut-off and many other policies yet they find a way to eventually regularise the illegal admissions through corrupt processes.”

Speaking further on measures to address admission concerns, he said, “as a Board, we have collated the requests from the various Senates and Academic Boards and have made your pleas known to appropriate authorities.

He noted that on Monday morning, the institution received a green light on flexible cut-off mark only for institutions which have exhausted the list of candidates with 180 above subject, of course to a minimum acceptable to JAMB and meeting of other pre-requisites.

In addition, we have re-opened the portal for change of institutions and courses so that institutions and candidates can legitimately without any need for regularisation effect change of course at the point of entry rather than NYSC-inspired regularisation with attendant abuse. I have given a personal and official assurance to NYSC that all abuse/loopholes have been blocked”.

He noted, “As a board, we are reviewing the process of some of our service delivery platforms to the public aimed at enhancing our services to the public in line with international best practices that will eliminate some of the difficulties our clients go through in accessing our services. The Board has therefore created on-line platforms for such services as purchase of application documents, change of course/institution, correction of data, etc.

“The platform provides for all the services candidates may require from the Board without increasing the service charge. It is no longer required of any applicant to travel to Bwari for any of the services. They are on line. Help desks on line, have also been opened. The beauty of it is that Heads of Institutions are directly involved in these processes because of the need to ensure transparency, accountability and completely eradicate abuses that were prevalent in the old order.

“The new service delivery has the potential of enabling a credible statistics for National Planning and it will also assist some organisations such as the Bureau of Statistics, NYSC, etc, in their activities.

“Therefore, the Board shall soon interface with the institutions in the collation of past records aimed at ensuring credible data. I want to urge my colleagues, Heads of Tertiary Institutions to be personally involved in the success of the implementation of the new platforms. In this light, you are requested to visit www.jamb.org.ng.

“Furthermore, we have had instances of receiving all manners of people who do business with the Board as representatives of their institutions. While we have no objection to who represents what Institutions, of late, we have had reasons to doubt some self-claimed representatives.

“The Board has recently forwarded the authentication of admissions officers’ forms to Heads of Tertiary Institutions and soon, we shall begin to enforce the spirit of the form by refusing to attend to any institution that is not appropriately identified.”

•Source: Business Day. Photo shows JAMB Registrar Is-haq Oloyede.

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