Do not admit unqualified candidates, JAMB tells institutions

Warns candidates against patronising tutorial centres
• Minister seeks prosecution of out-of-school children’s parents
• UBEC sets aside N2.7 billion for universal basic education

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has advised tertiary institutions against engaging in sharp practices by admitting unqualified candidates into their institutions.

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, gave the warning yesterday during a meeting with critical stakeholders on the board’s strategic planning and preparation for the supervision and administration of the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Abuja.

According to him, these institutions engage in fraudulent activities to pave way for their preferred candidates in place of qualified ones.

He said such fraudulent methods included denying candidates screening scores to disqualify them, warehousing candidates for pre-degree, stratification of candidates into programmes before summation of scores and lowering of merit aggregate cut-off marks to jump others.

He added that institutions also abused the catchment area policy to admit unqualified candidates.

Oloyede, therefore, advised institutions to desist from such acts, noting that the 2019 admission process would be done purely on merit.

Besides, the board has warned candidates who registered for the 2019 UTME to be wary of tutorial centres in the country, saying that some of them are breeding grounds for examination malpractices.

He said: “Tutorial operators are causing damages to education because parents are just there because of the results (they churned out) in previous years. So, they go to any extent to get good results. They are not teaching these students anything, they are faking results for them, their work is to corrupt the system.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has called for the prosecution of parents who fail to enrol their wards in the free compulsory basic education programme as provided by the UBE Act 2004.

Adamu, who disclosed this at a ministerial press briefing yesterday in Abuja, said 13 years after its passage, no state in Nigeria had fully implemented the UBE Act with regards to free and compulsory basic education.

He said until government starts prosecuting parents who refuse to send their wards to school, the country may never achieve the goals of UBE.

However, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has approved N2.7 billion to bring about further improvement of universal basic education through grassroots participation, support and the eventual ownership of basic education by the communities.

Executive Secretary of the commission, Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, represented by Director, Social Mobilisation in the ministry, Alhaji Bello Kagara, stated this yesterday at a master-trainers workshop on the implementation of School-Based Management Committee – School Improvement Programmes (SBMC- SIP) in Lokoja, Kogi State.