The Number Of Applicants For Polytechnics, COE Has Improved - JAMB

The Head, Media and Information of the Joint Admissions

and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Dr Fabian Benjamin, in a

statement yesterday said that the board has expanded the

carrying capacities of some of the higher institutions for

2016/2017 admission.



He equally stated that the enrollment for Colleges of

Education, Polytechnics and Monotechnics and Innovative

Enterprise Institutions has improved.



He reacted to the recent comments by the Vice Chancellor of

the University of Lagos, Prof. Rahmon Bello who said that

JAMB is responsible for admission challenges in higher

institutions and advocated that there should be separate

entrance examination for Universities, Polytechnics and

Colleges of Education.



According to Mr Fabian, what the VC failed to put into

consideration was the fact that it was due to the admission

challenges necessitated by the separate entrance

examinations for universities, polytechnics and colleges of

education that informed the decision for a Unified

Examination.



He stressed that when the board was conducting UME for

universities and MPCE for other institutions of higher

learning, one of the concerns of stakeholders was the

negligible number of candidates sitting for the MPCE. Where

you have over a million candidates applying for UME, and

less than 200,000 applying for MPCE.

He noted that going back to separate examinations would

only worsen the situation and further place heavy financial

burdens on the candidates, as they would want to sit for all

the examinations to achieve the same result that the unified

examination was currently giving them.

He attributed the preference for Universities over

polytechnics and COE to the issue of Bsc/HND Dichotomy

and called on the government to resolve the issue.