The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has appealed to Pro-chancellors of the institutions, under the aegis of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors of State-Owned Universities in Nigeria (COPSUN), to intervene in stopping illegal admission in universities.
 
The JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, who made the appeal during the opening of the seventh biennial conference of COPSUN, yesterday, in Lagos, with the theme, “Effective University Governance: Role of Stakeholders,” also expressed concern over the issue of underage admission, describing it as illegal.
 
He accused some of the vice-chancellors of not helping matters despite the board’s efforts to tackle the crisis. Oloyede, who recalled a letter he received from an agency from the European Union (EU) requesting to confirm if a student actually graduated from a particular university as she was just 15 years old, said: “The question they asked me was ‘Is this possible in Nigeria.’ I had to call the vice-chancellor of the institution and he confirmed that the student graduated from the university but was not admitted by JAMB. He had to include that he was not the VC at the time the student was admitted.”
 
He, therefore, urged the pro-chancellors to join the Board in fighting the illegal admission and underage crisis, noting that the challenges are becoming an embarrassment for the country.
 
In his remarks, COPSUN Chairman and Pro-chancellor of Gombe State University, Joshua Lidani, said that this year’s theme was to raise public consciousness and alarm at the threat posed to good governance, standards and quality in the tertiary educational system.
 
He said that some of the challenges facing the country’s higher education, which include impersonation, miracle examination centres, inadequate funding and proliferation of universities, must be strategically addressed to restore quality of education in the system.
   
Also, Chairman of the conference, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, urged the state universities to carve out specific niche to make them stand out to exploit corresponding comparative advantages that enhance their proposition.
 
Gambari, a former Chief of Staff to former President Muhammadu Buhari, tasked COPSUN to hold state governments accountable in ensuring they deliver on their promises for good education.
 
In his presentation, the Keynote Speaker, Prof. Nuhu Yaqub, lamented that despite series of interventions to address the stagnation of development in Nigerian universities, the crisis still persists.
 
He said that good governance could not be overlooked in the efforts to address some of the challenges facing the tertiary institutions, adding that various stakeholders, such as alumni, banks and financial institutions, civil society organisations, parents and so on must work collaboratively for the development and improvement of higher education.

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