More than 1.5 million candidates who wrote the 2018 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) have lost JAMB first choice admission for the 2018/2019 academic session, Straightnews has found out.
The online newspapers gathered that 1,798,438 candidates who sat the examination organised by Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in March 2018 paid N5,500 each for JAMB admission form excluding bank and GSM charges and other incidentals.
This is as the body stated it has offered first choice admission to about 200,000 candidates for the session into both Federal and state universities which are yet to open doors for studies.
Already, the different universities have forwarded list of students on second admission to JAMB for information; others with wherewithal have taken solace in the private universities, and the rest will be thrown into the over-crowded admission market to retake the examination.
The Head, Media and Information of the JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin, who told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos, that the admission took effect after the board’s policy meeting in June in Gbongan, Osun state.
According to him, the exercise is done through the Central Admission Process (CAP), an automated process to eliminate all human interference.
“We have so far offered not less than 200,000 first choice admissions to candidates.
“To this effect therefore, we are urging candidates to go to our site and check their admission status and those who have been offered such admission should quickly indicate by accepting and printing such offer, as failure to do so will automatically mean the candidate is no longer interested.
“And therefore, the board may see all such offers as rejected and would have no option than to mop them up and give it to other interested candidates.
“Candidates are to accept or reject all offers not later than October16 as that is when all offers of admissions of first choice will close.
“After that, we will commence admission exercise for the second choice of candidates,” Benjamin said.
He added that the admission process has been made easy as it is clear on the board’s official website, all what the candidates need to know about their admission status and process.
Recall that JAMB generated N8.453 billion against N7.8 billion raked in 2017 from the sales of forms to applicants seeking admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria in 2018.
The revenue came from payments made by 1,602,762 candidates who registered for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) held across the country.
Part of the revenue also came from registration fees paid by 135,670.00 Direct Entry (DE) candidates, our source said.
Each of the total UTME and direct entry candidates paid N5,500 for the forms out of which N4,700 goes to JAMB’s coffers while N800 is remitted to banks and suppliers of reading texts to applicants.
The number of applicants was lower this year following reforms in the application process which effectively blocked multiple registration by candidates.
About N1.8 million UTME and DE candidates sought tertiary admissions in 2017.
It is not exactly clear how much the Board will remit to the Federal Government this year after settling computer-based test centres, and paying other service providers and examination officials.
