Certificate racketeering responsible for DE crisis – NANS

The National Association of Nigerian Students has said the sale of Ordinary National Diploma certificates by some institutions to students is the cause of the recent crisis reported during the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board 2023 Direct Entry registration process.

NANS Vice-President, External Affairs, Mr Babatunde Akinteye, made this known in a statement.
The PUNCH reported that some students who wanted to register for the DE couldn’t do so due to the reduction in the number of registration centres and were thereby, found sleeping in front of the JAMB office, in Ikoyi, Lagos to meet up with the demand.

Akinteye explained that JAMB reduced the number of registration centres for Direct Entry because it found out some tertiary institutions were selling the OND certificates to students.

He commended JAMB for its promptness in tackling malpractices in the education sector.

Akinteye revealed that the unhealthy practice had been ongoing for a while, adding that JAMB in a bid to curb the act and ensure proper monitoring and supervision, went ahead to streamline registration centres.
“About two weeks ago, acting on a piece of information, I went with my team to the JAMB office at Ikoyi in Lagos at about past 11 p.m and I met prospective Direct Entry candidates sleeping outside the office in a bid to meet up with the completion of their registration and a closing date that was in earnest.
“I was forced to call out JAMB, as an agency, and a meeting was summoned. It was in this meeting that we were made to understand that the registration centres were reduced because of the abnormalities going on in some tertiary institutions.

“Some students purchased the Ordinary National Diploma certificates and then use same to obtain their Direct Entry forms to begin at a higher level in various institutions of higher learning.

“I wish to inform institutions of higher learning across the country and beyond, who are culpable in this certificate sales saga, that we are compiling their names and we shall expose them all in no record time,” he said.

He also pleaded with Nigerian students to avoid cutting corners and shun all acts capable of compromising their future.

“I wish to seize this opportunity to state that we stand with JAMB, in all that it has been doing to sanitise our country’s education system.”



Punch