Good News? Senate Asks JAMB To Extend Validity Of Results 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 was even as it ordered the board to
immediately stop its policy of re-
assigning candidates to schools they
never applied to, saying such policy was
contrary to the act establishing the
board.
To this end, results obtained from the
board by candidates seeking admission
into universities are expected to last for
three years.
The red chamber, which order came
following a motion entitled: ”JAMB’s New
Admission Policy, “ sponsored by Senator
Joshua Lidani, APC, Gombe South, which
was debated during plenary, 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.
Earlier, in his motion, Senator Lidani
frowned at the JAMB’s policy of posting
candidates to schools, including private
universities whose fees, he noted, were
beyond the means of the candidates’
parents or guardians, saying 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 and the subsequent
confusion surrounding the directive that
only candidates whose names were
forwarded to the university by JAMB
were eligible for post-UTME screening
and others would have to go back to
JAMB website to find out their new
institutions.
Senator Lidani expressed concern that
since the policy was announced, the
board was faced with series of massive
protests by parents and candidates of and
some organizations like the Association of
Tutorial School Operators of Nigeria as
well as other numerous stakeholders.
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.