Senate Directs JAMB To Extend Result Validity To 3 Years

The Senate, yesterday, directed the Joint Admissions and
Matriculation Board, JAMB, to begin to extend the validity of
its results to a period of three years.
This came following a motion entitled: “JAMB’s New
Admission Policy,” sponsored by Senator Joshua Lidani
(APC), Gombe South, which was debated during plenary.
The lawmakers also urged JAMB to consult widely with
Parents Teachers Association, ASUU and all other
stakeholders in the education sector with a view to coming
out with a friendlier holistic, comprehensive and sustainable
admissions policy.
It also directed its Committee on Education to enquire into
circumstances surrounding the JAMB policy, including all
allegations of favouritism and generally review the power of
JAMB vis-a-vis administration and submit findings within
one week.
Speaking earlier, Senator Lidani frowned at JAMB’s new
policy of posting candidates to schools they never chose,
including private universities whose fees, he noted, were
beyond the means of the candidates’ sponsors. He noted
that in some cases, candidate were posted to universities
located far away from their places of abode thus placing
additional financial burden on their parents.
Lidani expressed worry that although the Federal Ministry of
Education had since suspended the implementation of this
policy, JAMB was still going ahead with its implementation,
thus creating more hardship for parents and uncertainty in
the education sector.
He said he was concerned given that the policy runs
contrary to the letters and spirit of Section 5(1)(C) iii of the
JAMB Act, which according to him, requires that JAMB
should take into account preferences of the candidates in
their choices of schools.
He said JAMB, at its 2015 Combined Policy Meeting, held on
July 14, 2015, in Abuja, announced the adoption of a policy
whereby candidates of universities with surplus applicants
for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, UTME,
were reassigned to other universities with lower number of
candidates than their capacities.
While noting that JAMB was a board created by an Act of
the National Assembly in 1989 to administer a centralized
admission for universities, polytechnics and colleges of
education in Nigeria.
He further noted that by Section 5(1) (C) iii of the JAMB Act
2004, the function of the board, among other things, was the
general control of the conduct of the matriculation
examinations for admission into all universities, polytechnics
and colleges of education and also include the placement of
suitable qualified candidates in the tertiary institutions
having taken into account, the preferences expressed or
otherwise indicated by candidates for certain tertiary
institutions and courses.