JAMB issues a deadline to schools to reveal any unauthorised admissions.
All higher education institutions in the nation have been given a month by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to reveal any admissions made prior to 2017 that were not made through its Central Admissions Processing System.
The decision is meant to improve fairness and transparency in the admissions process, according to Dr. Fabian Benjamin, the JAMB Public Communication Advisor, who made this announcement on behalf of the board's registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, at a press conference in Abuja on Sunday.
The board has been made aware of certain schools' tendency to grant legitimacy by tolerating illicit admissions windows and admitting candidates outside of the Central Admissions Processing System's authorised window.
"The board has determined that in order to close this misused window, all institutions must immediately (or never) reveal the names of all candidates who were unlawfully accepted before 2017 and whose records are on file with them within the following month, starting on August 1, 2024.
"And unless declared inside this one-month window, any admission purportedly made before to 2017 will no longer be recognised or excused.
Institutions are urged to follow this instruction because there won't be any more excuses for previously unrecorded candidates who didn't even register with JAMB, let alone take any entrance exams.
The statement said, "This action is intended to ensure compliance with the provisions of CAPS while curbing illegal admissions and record-faking."
He claimed that the choice signified the end of the condonement of illegal admissions window, which previously allowed institutions to incorporate unauthorised admissions into the system.
Benjamin emphasised worries about organisations working together with applicants to fabricate information in order to obtain unauthorised admittance; he said that this development had resulted in phoney enrolment in the National Youth Service Corps program.
He claimed that some universities persisted with admitting applicants outside of CAPS and in requesting the Condonement of Undisclosed Illegal Institutional Admission in spite of warnings.
As a result, the board is discontinuing the part of the CUIIA procedure that permits candidates to be added to the system who have never registered.
"The only platform that is authorised for admissions is CAPS. Those who were admitted unlawfully between 2017 and 2020, even with a registration, will soon lose their chance to receive a waiver unless they disclose their information within the next month.
Thus, for the last time, all institutions are required to reveal the names of all candidates who were accepted without authorisation through their systems. "Going forward, the board will not accept any admission by any institution that is not disclosed," he declared.
Regarding the minimum age requirement for admission to postsecondary schools for the 2024–2025 academic year, the board upheld the 16-year-old requirement.
Candidates who will be at least 16 years old at the time of entrance in 2024 will be eligible, according to the announcement.
"This decision is in accordance with the instruction of Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education and chairman of the 2024 tertiary admission policy meeting, which states that the current 6-3-3-4 strategy would only be implemented starting in the 2025 session.
"It is dangerous, hostile, and needless that there is a sudden deluge of blatantly fraudulent affidavits and a rise in doctored upward age adjustments on NIN slips that are being submitted to JAMB in an attempt to upgrade recorded age. In line with the decision made at the 2024 Policy Meeting, anyone under the age of 16 would not and should not be accepted, he stated.
Benjamin also voiced his concerns about the recent emergence of an odd admissions technique known as "Top Up" by some universities and "Daily-Part-Time" by several polytechnics.
He claims that one recent and particularly egregious instance of this was the advertisement for the two-year Daily-Part-Time program at Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa, in Oyo State, which was published in the Nigerian Tribune on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.
It's important to make clear that no such programmes are approved by the National Board for Technical Education nor by the National Universities Commission. Both are also alien to the education system in Nigeria.
These are deceptive tools designed to undermine quality, approve quotas for full-time admission, fabricate records, and as a result, generate illicit revenue while sabotaging the aspirations and careers of honourable (and some equally dishonest) people.
“The candidates with zero or abysmally low UTME scores are rationally attracted to such contraption which would lead to nowhere.
“Part-time programmes are strictly regulated, allowing institutions to admit only up to 150 per cent of the approved full-time capacity. However, some institutions have been found to admit an excessive number of candidates through this unrecognised DPT programme, merging them with full-time students in classrooms and purporting to graduate them at the same time as full-time students,” he noted.
