JAMB charges Zamfara, Jigawa, Kebbi, FCT, others to improve enrollment record

As the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) prepares to commence the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry (DE) registration exercise, the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has made passionate appeal to states with the least enrollment figures in the 2021 UTME and DE registration, to put in extra efforts to improve on the registration statistics of candidates from their states. 

It would be recalled that the Registrar first made the call during the 2021 policy meeting when he rolled out the statistics for the PUTME/DE registration exercise where the list of the 10 states with the least registration figures (Niger, Adamawa, Taraba and Bayelsa, Jigawa, Kebbi, Yobe, Sokoto, FCT and Zamfara) was released. 

Oloyede in the latest issue of jambulletin revealed that the ten states have registration statistics ranging from between 0.01% to 1.46% of the total registration figure of about 1.4 million candidates nationwide. 

Prof. Oloyede, while addressing a group of stakeholders in his office on the need for equality in access to education, urged the governors of the states to do everything possible to improve on the pitiable statistics. 

The Registrar had maintained that he was fully aware of the challenges being faced by the states, especially in terms of insecurity in most of the states mentioned but appealed that education should be one of the channels of addressing some of these seemingly intractable issues. 

He said, “The Board is ever ready to be part of any legitimate process of assisting these states to close the gap between them and their peers. 

“As such, our doors are open for any partnership with any state that is willing to shore up its enrollment circumstance.” 

You will recall that the same appeal was made when the Registrar received members of the Katsina State Elders Forum which had paid a courtesy visit to the Board in the fourth quarter of last year for consultation on the conversion of the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina, to a teaching hospital to serve the proposed Katsina State University of Health Sciences. (Daily Independent)