The Federal Government has said stiffer penalties would be meted out to tertiary institutions and admission racketeers who bypass admission processes and the Central Admissions Processing System of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, was quoted to have said this at a policy meeting at JAMB headquarters, according to the weekly bulletin of the board released by JAMB’s Head of Information and Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin on Monday.
Adamu, who was represented by Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, said, “As a demonstration of our resolve, I have directed JAMB to bring forward for appropriate sanctions, the list of all institutions involved in the violation of the directive of government which was personally conveyed by me at the 2018 policy meeting at Gbongan, Osun State.
“The ministry is very resolute that heads of such institutions will be held personally responsible, either in or out of office. As such, if we are to sanitise our society, we must begin from the academics as they are saddled with the responsibility of moulding the character of future generations.”
The minister warned that all guidelines issued at the policy meeting on admissions must be strictly adhered to as the ministry would not condone any abuse of the admission guidelines.
He explained that CAPS was designed to safeguard the integrity of the admission process and ensure that all errors and biases are eliminated, wondering why institutions would jettison the automated platform.
Adamu said, “Any institution that issues admission letters to candidates outside CAPS will be punished for such gross indiscipline and fraud.”
JAMB Registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede said for the 2021/22 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the board would be introducing two new subjects – Computer Studies and Physical and Health Education.
This will bring the total number of UTME subjects to 25.
Oloyede added that 956, 809 admission spaces in 962 tertiary institutions in the country, about 600,000 had been filled.