The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), has urged the management of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), to extend the validity of the results of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, (UTME) beyond one year.
The union noted that this will allow applicants who are not offered admission that year to use the same results to seek admission in the next academic session “so that financial stress can be removed from Nigerians.”
ASUP National Publicity, Comrade Abdullahi Yelwa, said this in a paper presented as a guest speaker during the ‘first Bauchi South Stakeholders Interactive Session’ organised by the Senator representing Bauchi South Senatorial District, Buba Umar, which was held on Saturday at the Event Center, Bauchi.
Yalwa also charged the senator to fund an endorsement that will take care of those brilliant but indigent students.
According to him, the best legacy one can leave for the youth is a qualitative but affordable education.
Yalwa opined that what JAMB is doing is clearly extorting Nigerians who are seeking admission into higher institutions in the country.
The Senior Lecturer with Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic (ATAP) wondered why JAMB which is supposed to be a service-oriented government institution has turned to a revenue-generating organ thereby causing untold hardship on Nigerians unnecessarily.
According to him, “On students enrollment into higher institutions, particularly, I have observed the trend at which educational regulatory institutions, especially JAMB as an institution of government, has become a revenue-generating institution rather than a service-oriented institution.
“What JAMB is doing now is extorting Nigerians and causing unnecessary hardship on Nigerians and also locking opportunities instead of widening and increasing opportunities for enrollment in tertiary institutions.
“The acclaimed four choices in JAMB or UMTE is just a mirage, because, in reality and practice, there’s only one choice of institution. No matter what your score is, if you cannot get admission in the current session, your score is useless, you’ll have to do it again.
“This is focusing on revenue generation and this issue of changing institutions constantly because any institution that is not your first choice, cannot give you admission. So, there’s no need for second, third or fourth choices if you can’t get admission there.
“You must go back to JAMB and you must pay and change the institution. So, JAMB should stop deceiving Nigerians, they should stop wasting the resources of Nigerians and we should respect these choices.
“If you cannot get admission in the first choice, the others should offer you admission so that our children will not be subjected to untold hardship.”