JAMB insists on October as deadline

THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has said that the 2010 admissions to tertiary institutions will end on Oct. 2.

It put the total admissions for the year at 527,000, being the number of qualified candidates that could be absorbed by the institutions.

According to JAMB, 886,000 candidates qualified for admission, scoring 180 and above, but the admission capacity of the admitting institutions is far below that.

JAMB registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, while giving updates on the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, urged all institutions yet to finalise admission exercise to hasten up and conclude by Sept. 17 after which the board would close all admissions.

He said, ”By the 13th to 17th of September, all institutions must have concluded admission exercise and by Oct. 2, we are going to close shop on all admissions as there won‘t be any further admissions.

”Of the 886,000 candidates that passed the 2010 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, our tertiary institutions will be able to absorb only 527,000 for the 2010/2011 academic session.”

He said a large chunk of the admission exercise had not been done because of the inability of institutions with large carrying capacity to present their recommended candidates for placement.

Ojerinde said, ”While some have communicated to us on this, it is still against the spirit of consensus that we reached on the timetable for the exercise.

”I hereby appeal to institutions that have not made recommendations to the board on their admission exercise to kindly do so in earnest as we are resolved to work within the time frame that was jointly agreed to by institutions and the board for the exercise. The board will not have any genuine reason to accept submissions outside the timeline.”

He said that the first placement exercise for suitably qualified candidates for the 2010/2011 session was held on July 13 to 15, 2010 at Kaduna Polytechnic, while the second exercise held at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife on Aug. 10 to 12 with the admission officers of all tertiary institutions in attendance.

He noted that after the release of the 2010 UTME, a total of 82,000 candidates had incomplete results due to either multiple shading or none shading of particular subject(s) by candidates.

”However, 2,400 candidates out of the total figure have aggregate scores of 180 and above and their results have been sent to their various institutions of choice.

”This is a departure from the previous practice where candidates with incomplete result were not considered for admission,” he said.

He urged candidates to check their admission status on-line using the same e-facility card already used for printing of original result slips as the lists are already on the Internet.

Source: The Punch Newspapers