By APATA OYENIRAN

Professor Dorcas Omanyo Oluwade, Vice-Chancellor of Salem University, Lokoja, at one of the ceremonies to accept new students into the university, said, “Matriculation Ceremony marks your formal admission as bona fide members of a specialised community of scholars, who are united in their search for higher knowledge that would serve the greater interest of society.”

She added that the event marks their formal integration into the university system that is dedicated to the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge for the benefit of mankind and self-improvement. The Matriculation Oath spells out certain ethos and rules of intellectual engagement that must guide your behaviour in and outside the classroom at all times”.

Wikipedia describes matriculation as the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination.

In the same vein, Dr. Wahab Azeez, the Provost, Federal College of Education, Technical, Akoka, at its formal admission of 412 students to study for the National Certificate in Education (NCE) and Professional Diploma in Education (PDE) for the 2022/2023 academic session at the college described matriculation as a ceremony at which fresh students are fully integrated into the academic community.

Some Institutions Haven’t Matriculated In Five Years – JAMB

However, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, shocked Nigerians as he announced that some tertiary institutions in the country have failed to matriculate any students in the last five years, yet, they have been busy issuing certificates as well as graduating students.

Speaking during a two-day refresher training for all its Admission Desk Officers organised by the Board to sensitise them on the significance of matriculation and matriculation list analysis, Oloyede expressed displeasure with the flagrant disregard for extant regulations by erring institutions.

“How can a school that never admitted any candidate continue to issue certificates and graduating students? A number of them got approval to operate no doubt, but they never bother following other requisite regulations thereafter, they must continue running the institutions in their way,” he said. (Daily Independent)