JAMB directs tertiary institutions to conclude 2021 admissions

By FRANK IKPEFAN, Abuja

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has directed all tertiary institutions to complete the 2021 admission exercise.

It said the call became necessary following a negligible number of fully – processed 2021 admissions on the Central Admission Processing System (CAPS) out of the teeming population of eligible candidates with the requisite qualification “yearning for admission.”

The Board said admissions for only 100, 000 candidates have been processed out of the over 600, 000 eligible candidates.

According to the weekly bulletin released by Head of Information and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin on Monday, JAMB’s Director of Admissions, Mohammed Ahmed, stated these while briefing some select institutional Desk Officers.

The director implored the desk officers to interact with their respective institutions to ensure that even if they are not ready for the students to resume, they can conduct such admissions prior to their respective chosen resumption dates to enable their candidates to know their fate.

Ahmed said the board was ready to roll out the 2022 unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) application documents, hence the need for Desk Officers to be proactive.

The director of admissions, during the meeting, expressed the resolve of the board to prevent candidates from incurring unnecessary expenses through buying new e -pins that they may not use if they are eventually admitted.

“The board is aware of the numerous challenges that have impacted the academic calendars of tertiary institutions as well as the smooth processing of admission requests but urged them to devise acceptable means of closing the gap and complete the 2021 admission exercise on schedule,” it said.

It would be recalled that over 1.4 million candidates registered for both the 2021 UTME and Direct Entry of which only about 600, 000 possessed the requisite qualifications to be admitted based on available records with JAMB.

Meanwhile, the board said it has changed the literature texts in four language subjects, including Literature – in – English ahead of this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

JAMB listed the four language subjects as Arabic, Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa.

“New text for Literature-in-English include Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka; Look Back in Anger by John Osborne; Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta; Unexpected Joy at Dawn by Alex Agyei Agyiri; and Wuthering Heights by Emile Bronte.

“These changes would take effect from the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME),” JAMB said. (The Nation)