2022 UTME/DE: JAMB WANTS MORE NIGER, ADAMAWA, EIGHT STATES’ CANDIDATES TO REGISTER

Ahead of the registration procedures for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has called on the governors of Niger, Adamawa, Zamfara, Yobe, Taraba, Bayelsa, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto and the Federal Capital Territory to improve on the “pitiable statistics” of enrolment in their respective states.

The board added that the states recorded registration statistics ranging from 0.01 per cent to 1.4 per cent of about 1.4 million candidates, who wrote its examinations in 2021.

The Registrar, JAMB, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, in the weekly bulletin of the board, which was released on Monday, was said to have sent a passionate appeal to the states involved.

The bulletin read in part, “As the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board prepares to commence the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and Direct Entry registration, the registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, has sent a passionate appeal to states with the least enrolment figures in the 2021 UTME and DE registration to put in extra efforts to enhance the registration statistics of candidates from their states.

“It will be recalled that the registrar first made this comment during the 2021 policy meeting when he rolled out the statistics for the 2021 UTME/DE registration, 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.

“According to him, these 10 states have registration statistics ranging from between 0.01 per cent to 1.46 per cent 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 these states to do everything possible to improve on these pitiable statistics.

“The registrar maintained that he was fully aware of the challenges being faced by these 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.”