Going by the directive from the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), today is the deadline for this year’s admission of students into the tertiary institutions across the country.
All schools, by this directive, are expected to have concluded all admission processes, including sending of names of successful candidates to JAMB for admission letters while students await resumption.
But as at today, only the colleges of education, polytechnics and the private universities have been able to meet the deadline. Even at that, some of them are still asking JAMB to give them a few days of grace to accommodate more students.
Those in this category according to National Mirror investigations, include: the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti; Oyo State College of Education, Ila-Orangun; Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Otto/Ijanikin, Lagos; Yaba College of Technology, Lagos; Federal Polytechnic, Nekede and a host of others. It was gathered that they had already written officially to JAMB for extension. Also, National Mirror can authoritatively reveal that a large number of public universities in the country have failed to meet the deadline.
The few that have completed theirs, such as Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife; Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye; University of Ilorin (UNILORIN); River State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), Port Harcourt; Federal University of Technology (FUTO),Owerri, among others are yet to come up with their final admission lists.
For example, National Mirror gathered that OAU was about posting the lists of all the successful candidates on the school notice board, after which the admission for this year for the school is closed.
This was made known by the institution’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Abiodun Olanrewaju, who confirmed that the university management was aware of the deadline and kept to it. When asked why the list had not been posted, Abiodun said it was a deliberate attempt by the university to avoid unnecessary pressure from candidates and their parents.
He hinted that the lists would soon be made available to the public as the university was already done with JAMB as far as input from the examination’s body on the admission for the 2013/2014 academic session is concerned.
UNILORIN and RSUST, whose lecturers did not join the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and a few others, have also concluded theirs.
This is unlike the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, that has just released its supplementary list last week. By implication, the institution is yet to conclude its admission process as the candidates in the list will serve as the last batch for admission by the university for next academic session. A majority of the institutions blamed the ongoing ASUU strike for the delay.
A source, who preferred anonymity at the information unit of the University of Lagos, claimed that ASUU’s action had not only paralysed activities on the campus, but also responsible for the slow admission process in the university. According to the officer, ASUU strike has made the conduct of the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination by the institution near impossible.
“As you all know, virtually all the public universities in the country have running battles with ASUU over the conduct of Post-UTME, which forms major part of the basic requirements for admission of new students on campuses.
This action of ASUU has delayed the admission processes this year to a large extent. But even at that, I can assure you that UNILAG is almost through with hers. And without speaking for the institution, I will like to add that the university is never in the habit of flouting rules and regulations.
And the delay this time around cannot be said to be peculiar to UNILAG, as hardly could you find any public university that has concluded the process as at today (yesterday),” the source explained. It was gathered that the striking lecturers, at a time went round examination venues to disrupt the process.
This made the institutions to conduct the examination in batchers. Reacting to the deadline issue, JAMB’s spokesman, Mr. Fabian Benjamin said that the admission was still ongoing as some universities were yet to conclude the exercise.
“But as at today (yesterday), we have done with about 90 per cent of the entire admission exercise for the year,” he said, reiterating that expected number of students to be admitted across all the tertiary institutions in the country remain about 700,000 based on their carrying capacities.”
With the current development, even if all institutions are done with admission, prospective undergraduates would still have to wait as the ASUU strike lingers with no end in sight.
