Don Faults Admission Criteria into Tertiary Institutions

A former dean of law at the University of Uyo, Mr. Udombana, has called on the Nigerian government to halt the policy which allowed admission requirements to be lowered for prospective university students in the country.

Udombana said admissions to institutions of higher learning in Nigeria have been skewed to accommodate candidates whose performances fall below the mark.

He said, “The fallen standard of education is not a function of the university per se but a function of the faulty admission policy the country has operated for a long time now. You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay.

“For instance, the admission policy during the past two decades has not been merit-based. Under the current policy as coordinated by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, admission on merit is only 45 percent of the totality of admission into any faculty.

“This means that if a department is to admit, for instance a hundred students, only 45 will be admitted on the basis of hierarchical score from the UME and Post UME examinations.”

Mr. Udombana also decried the adoption of criteria like educationally disadvantage states, federal character principle and catchment areas for admission of candidates to tertiary institutions.

“The introduction of such admission criteria has encouraged mediocrity and right from day one; students who are admitted through such policy are defective and can hardly cope with the demands of the learning.

“I have been marking scripts in which I get alarmed and ashamed at what our undergraduate write during examinations. Some of them cannot construct a correct sentence that conveys meaning,” he said.

Mr. Udombana, however, called for the convocation of a national summit on education; where stakeholders would be brought together to identify the problems, design solutions and chart the way forward.