From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said it received 482,356 applications from candidates in the 2,022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) who want admission into the school of health sciences, to either study medicine, pharmacy or other related courses.
JAMB said there were 78,578 admission quota for medicine, pharmacy and other related courses, but so far, 43,558 candidates have been admitted in the 2022 admission exercise which is still ongoing.
It stated that in engineering, technology and environment faculties, 182,052, applications were received in the 2022 UTME for 68,896 available quota, and so far, 48,444 candidates have been admitted into the faculties.
The board also stated that in the faculty of law and legal studies, there are 8,307 available quota, but 104,955 applications were received from candidates in 2022 UTME, while 5,822 admissions have been offered to candidates.
In faculty of sciences, there were 263,794 applications for 141,397 available admission quota. However, 98,770 admissions have been offered to candidates.
JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, in a presentations at a policy meeting in Abuja, explained that education and agriculture faculties received applications that were far below the allocated admission quota.
He said: “67,198 applications were received in the education faculty for 111,176 admission quota in the 2022 UTME, and 71,619 admissions were offered while in agriculture faculty, 26,381 applications were received for 30,536 admission quota while 18,878 admissions were offered.”
Oloyede, however, confirmed that 2022 admission was ongoing, hence there were chances for more candidates to get admission, thus closing the quotas gaps in different faculties.
He said: “557,626 candidates and counting from the 1.8 million UTME applications have been admitted into tertiary institutions across the country in the 2022 admission exercise. But as we speak today, the admission is up to 600,000, even as we target about 700,000. This is because admission is still ongoing.”
The registrar discredited the notions that JAMB offer admissions, explaining that admissions were depended on the availability of candidates’ five o’level and other requirements, insisting that UTME was only meant for admission ranking.
He also stated that rigidity of programme choice and mismatch of demand and supply were responsible for obvious gaps in admission vacancies, and why candidates were not admitted.
Oloyede listed lack of interest for existing vacancies and trail candidates (no o’level results or awaiting results) as responsible for admission gaps in the tertiary institutions.