At the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) policy meeting last week, the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa said Nigerian universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education are admitting thousands of students without checking whether they have anywhere to sleep.
He gave an example of a polytechnic with a population of over 36,000 students and just about a 1,000-bed hostel accommodation. He therefore warned higher institutions to go by JAMB’s criteria, as set out in CAPS (Central Admissions Processing System), and not admit more than their quotas, in order to “protect the integrity of the system.”
Though that disturbing revelation should shake our confidence in our university education, and enrage us, we moved on as if all is well. Matter-of-factly, the minister should be stirred to action, as the chief superintendent in charge of education, now that he is in a vantage position to do so. But for many parents and students, it has been a familiar trend in our university system for decades.
A few weeks ago, a University of Nigeria, Nsukka student, in a viral video, exposed the level of dilapidation in the school with vivid footage of collapsed toilets, bathrooms in hostels that have obviously not been given a facelift or renovation in decades, blocked W/Cs, stinking conveniences, and tiled walls and floors in disrepair and about to collapse. In our premier university!
