National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) calla for scrapping of JAMB

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has called for the scrapping of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) over what it described as anti-students and exploitative policies.

Its National President, Mr. Tijani Usman, made this known monday in Abuja when he led a protest to the JAMB headquarters, asserting that the purpose for the establishment of JAMB had been bastardised.

According to him, “the reason why we are here is to tell the general public and the government of the day that JAMB has outlived its usefulness. Nigerian students have seen most of the draconian policies of JAMB that it is exploitative

“You can’t imagine students from NCE, students with diploma having purchase a form for N5,000 that is expected to be a direct entry or pre-requisite for admission into the schools, JAMB will still connive with the management of institutions to collect what we called “de-regularisation fee”, what do they mean by that?

“Parents have been paying huge sums of money just for their children to get admission into various tertiary institutions, yet JAMB will not give them admission because the body cannot give admission,” he added.

Tijani stated that after writing JAMB, students would still write post-JAMB, which he said is exploitative, explaining that it was in view of this that NANS mobilised the students in order for those anti-student policies to be reversed.

“JAMB must retract those policies, their policies are anti-progressive, Nigerian students are against it, it is either Dibu must leave or JAMB be scrapped,” Tijani stated.

Addressing the students, JAMB’s Director of Quality Assurance, Mr. John Okonkwo said the policy that generated so much controversy was introduced by JAMB in order to give admission seekers the opportunity of getting admission into other schools offering the same courses that students applied for, but which was not the same schools of their choice.

But he added that JAMB had to allow the status quo to remain after the controversy generated by the new policy, which he pointed out, that the general public and the admission seekers seem not to understand.

Okonkwo stated: “I want you to know that your reason may just be due to lack of proper perception on what the policies on admission is about, “This policy that has generated so much controversy is about Nigerian students, JAMB is saying instead of 100,000 candidates looking for 9,000 spaces, while don’t you allow the surplus go to other places where there are spaces, instead of them repeating the same exams year in year out, some of them will say it is only UNILAG I want, and UNILAG cannot take more than 9,000 a year, so, out of this 100,000, over 90,000 will be thrown back

“The policy is that give UNILAG what it can accommodate and let the surplus ones go into other needy institutions to avoid wastages and delay in admission, so it was actually for the Nigerian child, but it was not properly understood because some institutions are benefiting from this high numbers of admission seekers, through the conduct of post-UTME.”

Credit: ThisDay