Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Ishaq Oloyede has announced that many of the candidates who sit for the yearly Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) are not qualified for admission in any higher institution.
Professor Oloyede, who fielded questions from news men shortly after monitoring the mop-up exam, specially arranged for candidates whose centres were allegedly involved in malpractice and candidates with biometric issues during the general examination for this year in May, said that JAMB cannot be held responsible for such unqualified students.
He insisted that parents should be blamed for pushing their children who are still in either SS1 or SS2 forward to sit for the exam to test their ability.
According to the Registrar, only the SSCE “O/L” result is the major and permanent requirement for every admission seeker at whatever level in the country while UTME is just to rank them for admission.
Speaking on JAMB exam now that members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the country are still on strike, Professor Oloyede said that the strike would not affect the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) when it is due.
According to him, aside from the fact that more than half of all private universities are in session, some public Universities, particularly most state universities are not on strike.
“I can mention some of them. I know of Osun State University, Lagos State University, Kwara State University, and several others. And the reason for that is simple. Many of them are not on state’s government subvention and so their lecturers’ salaries are paid from the school fees.
“So they know that if they should go on strike, their salaries will not be paid.
“And besides those institutions, some other public universities such as Defence Academy, Army University, Police University and the likes are also not on strike.
“So, can’t we then now say because lecturers in the federal universities and few others are on strike, we should stop conducting our exam? What about those who are not on strike?
“So, to do that will be an unfair thing in my thinking to those schools, students and even to the society at large. We can’t hold the entire system down because a part of it is having issue.”
Professor Oloyede however, expressed over the prolonged ASUU strike, which he said, has forced students to remain idle for many months and would want the crisis resolved without further delay, for normalcy to return to those schools.
