Nigeria’s universities admission system: The prospects, the confusion, the anxiety

Every year, tertiary (especially university) admission and matriculation process in Nigeria is steeped in confusion, controversies and anxiety. TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE, in this report, examines the interplay of factors and the possible solutions.

Peters (surname withheld) was confident that he would secure the required credit passes in all his papers in the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) at first attempt as a final year student of the Federal Science and Technical College, Yaba, Lagos. And he did, being one of the brilliant students of his set. He obtained credit passes and above in all the eight subjects he sat for including English language and Mathematics.

He also scored 225 out of the possible 400 marks in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB for that year. Based on his UTME result, he was invited for post-UTME screening by the University of Lagos, Akoka, first university of choice. But he was not given admission as he could not meet up with the aggregate cutoff mark for Computer Engineering which had been his dream course.

Undaunted, he reapplied the following year; but though he did better in 2016, he still could not meet up with the cutoff score for the same course at the university.

For Peters, it was either Computer Engineering at UNILAG, or nothing. So, he applied again for the 2017 UTME edition. Unfortunately, his 64.5% aggregate score still could not open the door for him, so he settled for another related course offered him. Today, Peters is a student of UNILAG.

Akin Olubode’s experience is a little different. Though, he had also attempted UTME thrice, his performances in both UTME and WASSCE were below par. His first UTME was in 2014. That year, he scored 197 while awaiting school certificate result, which he eventually did not pass very well, having scored ordinary pass in English language.

Consequently, he didn’t bother to pursue the admission further; he knew that the results could not earn him a slot in the Department of Accounting at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, his university of first choice.

He applied for and sat another UTME and WASSCE. He passed WASSCE while his UTME score was just above 200.

“My aggregate score after the post-UTME screening was far below the cut off mark and in order not to continue wasting my time at home, I enrolled for a pre-degree programme with the hope that I would do well and secure admission,” Olubode told Nigerian Tribune. But at the end, his results could still not earn him admission.

Olubode then enrolled for a diploma with the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria, with the hope of using his result to secure direct entry to study the course at a degree level at the same university.

Peters and Olubode are not alone in these kinds of experiences. About 1.65 million youths on the average sit the UTME annually with about 85 per cent of them opting for university education.

However, the issue of admission, especially at the university level in Nigeria, generates lots of confusion, controversies and anxiety among stakeholders and the public.

Many are quick to draw attention to the huge disparity between the huge number of candidates who sit the matriculation examination every year and those who eventually secure admission. On the contrary, agencies like the JAMB and the National Universities Commission (NUC), the agency that regulates university education, as well as some experts believe that the emphasis should not be on the number of applicants but on who really qualifies for admission.

Still, another school of thought, draw attention to the carrying capacity, while to some parents and students, the choice of courses and schools as well as financial implications are usually the main concern.

Many stakeholders believe that Nigeria’s admission should have been tailored along that of the United States and Canada as well as some other developed countries, where schools independently conduct and process admissions, most times without charging fees.

Indeed, Nigerian candidates that can afford it have taken advantage of this. Just last year, two Nigerian girls: Ifeoma Thorpe-White and Helen Akhere Uwade were both reported to have been offered admission by 11 Ivy League institutions in the US, including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia University, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Princeton.

Similarly, Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna, also a Nigerian, was also offered admission by eight different American universities the same year.

In 2016, 17-year-old Nigerian girl, Serena Omo-Lamai, who finished from Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, secured admission into 13 American and Canadian universities all at once, including Emory, Georgia Institute of Technology, New York University, and Syracuse University. She eventually settled for Syracuse to study Bio-Medical Engineering.

The questions are: why is Nigeria’s system of admission so limiting that candidates’ choices are limited from the onset? Is the centralized admission and matriculation process (which JAMB represents) really helpful?

There are people who believe that the system operated in the US, Canada and other developed countries are just not practicable in Nigeria.

JAMB, for example, insists that majority of UTME candidates are just not admissible. And more importantly, there is the problem of limited access.

The Director of Public Affairs of JAMB, Dr. Benjamin Fabian, insists that more than 90 per cent of UTME candidates with requisite qualifications are given admission every year.

“People always emphasise that about 1.6 or 1.7 million candidates sit the UTME and that majority will not secure admission; whereas those in the majority are without WASSCE results,” he said.

Fabian told Nigerian Tribune that JAMB did a study a year ago on the 1.7 million candidates who took its matriculation examination and found out that more than 800,000 (47.06%) scored below 100 out of the possible 400 marks, while a significant number from the rest did not also have their minimum WASSCE qualifications.

“So, at the end, we settled for around 700,000 after beating down our cutoff marks and close to 600,000 candidates we eventually offered admission,” he said.

“Even at that, the number of those admitted would have been more but many refused to study another course they were comfortably qualified for or attend other universities other than their preferred ones. So, the emphasis should have been on quality, and not on quantity or schools conducting independent examinations.”

Corroborating Benjamin, a former Minister of Education, Professor Chinwe Obaji, also noted that majority of UTME candidates are usually not qualified to sit the examination, much less admitted.

She recalled that in 2005 when she was education minister Nigeria had 75 universities altogether, with a combined carrying capacity of around 148,000 students. At the end of the admission exercise, less than half of the figure was those qualified.

“That is why I always advocate that students should have their WASSCE results before sitting the UTME so as to know who actually qualifies for admission,” she noted.

Professor Obaji also identified other factors that often drive away applicants from some universities, including infrastructural decadence, inadequate competent lecturers, lack of well-equipped laboratories and libraries, as well as poor standard.

She said: “We shouldn’t be talking about admission alone, as many state universities are awful, let alone privately owned ones. They don’t have facilities required to train students in a standard way. So, for me, it is not even wise to admit people without having basic infrastructures without having enough and competent lecturers, well-equipped laboratories and libraries; without paying lecturers and other workers their salaries as and when due and so forth.

“So, the problem is beyond mere admission. It is also not about each school admitting their students independently. That will even make the matter worse, because many schools will cash in on that method to enrich their pockets, since such service won’t be for free.”

“It is not about opening new universities either. It is about going back to the basics. We should look at hiring competent lecturers. We should look at the infrastructure such as where the lecturers will teach, where the students will live, what will be in the laboratories and libraries. Those should be our concern.

“So, it is not schools doing independent entrance examinations that will increase enrolment but the carrying capacity based on standard.”

Investigations revealed that many of Nigeria’s universities are not attractive to applicants and are therefore grossly undersubscribed for admission on yearly basis.

Statistics obtained from JAMB confirmed this position. Out of 1.54 million applicants seeking university (less polytechnic etc) admission in 2016, the federal universities (39 in all excluding the National Open University of Nigeria) alone had up to 1.1 million subscribers (representing 71.42%) while the rest were shared between the 39 state and 55 private universities at 434,959 (28.24%) and 9,656 (0.63%) respectively.

Even among the federal universities, only a few of them like the University of Ilorin, University of Benin, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Nigeria  Nsukka, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Akwa; University of Lagos, Akoka, and University of Ibadan frequently record huge applications.

For example, UNILORIN alone, according to JAMB, had 103,238 (10.3%) of the total figure during the year in review, while UNIBEN, ABU, UNN, NAU, UNILAG, and UI had 81,363; 75,383; 61,862; 60,659 and 59,176 respectively.

But universities like Federal University Gashua, Yobe had just 1,438 subscribers while the Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa and Federal University, Gusau, Zamfara, all most recently established, had 2,315 and 3,560 respectively.

What obtains among federal universities, however, applies to the state universities. Out of the total 434,959 candidates who applied to them in 2016, Nassarawa State University, Keffi had the highest subscribers (35,555), according to JAMB;  followed by Imo State University, Owerri (32,237); Kaduna State University (29,142); Delta State University, Abraka (28,623) and Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State (28,515). Yobe State University, Damaturu, had just 1,646 applicants.

The situation at the private sector is worse. For instance, just 9,656 candidates (representing 0.63%) of the total figure applied originally to all the 55 private universities available nationwide in 2016.

The top four were Covenant University, Ota (2,586); Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (1,304), Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo (1,248) and Igbinedion University, Benin City (418). There were some with less than 10 subscribers.

Investigations, however, showed that majority of them attract more candidates after those candidates failed to secure admission into public institutions and can afford their bills.

The implication of this development is that only a few universities in Nigeria are really attracting huge applications and they are government-owned.

For instance, about 104,000 candidates applied to UNILORIN alone last year, according to the university’s Public Affiars Director, Mr Kunle Akogun. Only about 11, 000 from that figure were admitted.

“Though, we would have admitted more as we had the capacity to cope, the university did not want to flout the NUC’s directive on carrying capacity,” he noted.

Akogun, however, believes that centralization of the matriculation examination is not the real reason so many applicants are unable to secure admission, but the huge disparity in standards among institutions.

According to him, the UTME policy promotes unity and healthy competition, not only among candidates who come from different cultural backgrounds, but also among the institutions and citizenry as a whole.

He reasoned that should each school, especially the government-owned, be responsible for their entrance examinations and fixing of cutoff marks, all the big institutions like UNILORIN, UNIBEN, ABU, OAU, UNIPORT, UNILAG and so on would be naturally regionalised.

“You will just find out that only people from Kwara State, for example, will apply to UNILORIN and similar situation will happen to UNIBEN, UNN and ABU. Only students from their areas will apply to them and that will not be good enough for our country that is culturally divided,” he explained.

The situation in UI is a bit different. The institution’s spokesman, Mr. Olatunji  Oladejo, said, “UI has the capacity to admit 7,000 students on yearly basis, but in its wisdom, it admits between 3,000 and 3,500 maximum across disciplines, notwithstanding the number of applicants who obtain 200/400 JAMB’s bench mark.”

He explained that the reason is to be able to give the best of training to their students.

“That is why UI admission is very competitive, as we consider only the exceptional students whom I can refer to as academic champions for admission. The idea is to maximally utilise the little resources we have on them and make them global graduates,” he added.

He even explained what to be expected from the institution’s forthcoming admission, saying, “We have more than 53,000 candidates who made UI their most preferred university and obtained the JAMB’s 200 minimum benchmark, but only 3,500 (representing 6.7%) of this figure will be admitted.”

Agreeing with JAMB and the former minister as well as UI’s Oladejo’s positions on Nigeria’s university admission system, Mr. Anthony Kila, a Professor of Strategy and Development and former lecturer at Cambridge University, said centralisation of entrance examination is not really the problem but poor standard that drive many away from those institutions.

Kila, who is also a director of Lagos-based Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies, said in the US or UK, there are not only enough spaces because of many schools around, standards are also very high.

“That is why one school is as good as the other, unlike in Nigeria where many applicants would not want to go to particular schools even when they can afford their bills,” he said.

“So, let proprietors of both government and private schools put them in order and let the students also take their studies more seriously. University admission will definitely jump up in Nigeria,” he added.