2019 UTME: Agriculture lowest in application – JAMB


The huge diversification of the nation’s economy with agricultural sector is yet to capture the attention of igerian students.  

The statistics of candidates released by  the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for admission in the 2019/2020 session shows that only 32,729 of the students out of 1,865,843 candidates who registered for 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, (UTME), apply to study Agriculture at degree level.

Dr. Fabian Benjamin, the head of public affairs, said that only 2,303 candidates applied to study Agriculture at national Diploma (ND) level. He also said Nigeria has no fewer than three specialised public universities of agriculture and agricultural faculties in several universities across the country, as well as a host of colleges of agriculture scattered across the nation.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 435,897 candidates have applied for admission to study medical, pharmaceutical or health sciences at degree level in the 2019/2020 academic session.

According to JAMB spokesman, social sciences had the highest number of 376,388 candidates while sciences were next with total of 280 782 and engineering and technology with 208,933 candidates.

He further noted that arts and humanities faculties attracted 108,809 candidates; engineering and technology remain non-attractive to female students with only 20,266 female applications out of total of 208,932 candidates.

Also candidates for law and legal studies amount to 102,961, out of which female students have the highest number with 58,093, followed by engineering with 11,214 candidates. Health gets a total of 7,038 ,while sciences have a total of 3,767 candidates. Agriculture came last with 2,303 candidates.

Similarly, 23,458 candidates applied for Arts in colleges of education while 10,684 candidates applied for sciences.

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