Enrolment in poly, college of education on the increase – JAMB

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Monday said that the enrolment for Colleges of Education, Polytechnics and Monotechnics and Innovative Enterprise Institutions had improved greatly.

JAMB’s Head, Media and Information, Dr Fabian Benjamin, said this in a statement he issued in Lagos on Monday.

It said that the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) had expanded the carrying capacity of the institutions and thereby, to a large extent, addressed the issue of admission access in the country.

According to the statement, the negative preference by most Nigerian candidates over these institutions of higher learning necessitated the need by the board to introduce a unified examination.

Today, we are not there yet, but the enrolment for colleges of education, polytechnics, monotechnics and Innovative Enterprise Institutions has greatly improved.

Having said this, I want to say that we are worried by a recent interview granted by the Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, Prof. Rahmon Bello, where he allegedly blamed the Board for admission challenges in tertiary education.

The respected scholar also said that the board’s matriculation examination should be split into three, with the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education each having separate entrance examination.

We sincerely appreciate this concern over the challenges of admission, especially as it affects carrying capacity and the preferences of candidates for universities over other tiers of tertiary institutions.

However, the board would want the public to note that it was this same concern amongst others that led to the unification of the matriculation examination,’’ the statement said.

According to the statement, when the board was conducting UME for universities and MPCE for other institutions of higher learning, one of the major concerns of stakeholders was the negligible number of candidates sitting for the MPCE.