University Rejects 91,777 Admission Seekers...ALOT LEFT BEHIND

Minister of Education Prof. Ahmed

 

 

The nightmare of qualified admission seekers has not abated in the country. We are astonished to note that the ambitions of many prospective university students are being dashed due to lack of space in the nation’s over 93 public and private universities. Recently, the University of Lagos (Unilag) authorities revealed a pathetic statistic which underscored this reality. Prof. Adetokunbo Sofoluwe, vice-chancellor of the university, during the matriculation ceremony, disturbingly declared that: “Out of the over 100,000 applications received across all the faculties for the 2011/2012 academic year, the university offered admission to a total of 8,223 students.’’

The breakdown is as follows: Faculty of Arts 561 students, Faculty of Business Administration 1,010 students, Faculty of Education 1,028 students, Faculty of Engineering 649 students, Faculty of Environmental Science 451 students, Faculty of Law 236 students, Faculty of Medicine 637 students, Faculty of Pharmacy 287 students, Faculty of Sciences 1,005 students and Faculty of Social Sciences 920. The implication of this is that the university rejected the application requests of 91,777 admission seekers into the institution. To us, this is alarmingly scandalous. Although we give allowance for overlapping applications, we still wonder what the figures are for the other universities across the country.

During the 2008-09 academic year, it was reported that more than a million Nigerian youths wrote the University Matriculation Examination (UME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). However, the universities were only able to admit 153,000 out of 448,000 successful candidates. The remaining 295,000 qualified would-be students were denied admission for lack of space.

From the revelations made by the Unilag authorities, it could be discerned that the situation is not in any way improving. The country is confronted with a situation where, in years to come, more secondary school leavers will obtain the minimum qualification to enter universities, only to be confronted with the inability of existing ones to absorb them.

This development is a great disservice to the unflinching urge of these applicants to acquire university education. Unfortunately too, while a school like Unilag might be turning down such a huge number of qualified applicants, there are universities in other parts of the country that could not even fill their spaces. We are aware that the current admission criteria make it mandatory for universities to admit students adopting the following formula: 45% of slots for merit: 35% for the university’s catchment areas and 20% for educationally disadvantaged states. These criteria need to be reviewed in view of the reality that all the states in the federation now have their own universities while more slots should be reserved for those that are qualified on merit.

We call on the government to direct the National Universities Commission (NUC), the Committee of Vice-Chancellors in Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to fashion out a policy position that will de-emphasise the craze for university education. For us, more practical and realistic steps would have been for government to allow selected colleges and polytechnics to be awarding degrees.

Also, the discrimination being meted out on polytechnic graduates that are middle level manpower providers for the country should be discouraged. In addition, the Higher School Certificate (HSC) that was abolished over two decades ago should be revived and made a direct entry qualification into the university. The Open University of Nigeria should be made more attractive so as to entice more prospective undergraduates.  Also, the existing universities should be strengthened through increased funding so that their capacity to admit more students will be increased. If these could be done, drastic improvement will be noticed in the decreasing admission rate in the land.

Already, this is causing a serious loss to the Nigerian state. Many Nigerian parents are sending their wards to other African countries like Ghana and South Africa in search of the Golden Fleece. They believe that these countries’ educational system will provide value for the fees being paid unlike in the nation where standards are seriously being eroded. The government must hearken to these drastic steps in order to reverse the trend of qualified candidates being denied admission for lack of space in the universities.

Failure to address this issue compounds the larger issue of youth restlessness in the country that manifests itself not only in unemployment, but also in the social turmoil of the day: militancy, armed robbery, inter-ethnic violence and religious bigotry.

Our budget philosophy, especially in the federal area, has failed to appreciate how central education is to this country’s future. Repeated poor performance of our universities in world rankings has not inspired any radical policy shift and enthusiasm.
Qualified Nigerians must not be denied university education for whatever reason. The Unilag authorities and other universities in the country must work in concert with government to reverse this disconcerting trend.

CULLED FROM http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/editorial/27645-left-behind.html