Varsities’ inability to meet carrying capacities angers Ojerinde

The registrar of JAMB, Professor Dibu Ojerinde has frowned at the inability of most federal universities in Nigeria to fill up their quota on carrying capacities. He further threatened publishing the names of the concerned universities, if they remained unchanged in their attitude towards expanding access to university education in the country.
Ojerinde, who made the revelation while briefing Education reporters in Bwari, FCT, also noted that many Nigerian universities have consistently lagged behind in meeting their carrying capacities by failing to fill available spaces in their universities with successful candidates that excelled in the UTME.

The development, he said, has deprived many Nigerian youths who though performed very well in the examination conducted annually by the board failed to secure admission into Nigerian universities.
The registrar lamented that most Nigerian universities are not responsive to their carrying capacities approved for them by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to the extent that, most of them have consistently failed to fill up to 50 percent of the available spaces in their institutions.

He stated further that the universities involved in this unfortunate conduct are mostly federal universities, reiterating that the development has become worrisome and has prompted him to direct his officers to send the table of the ‘approved carrying capacities’ to each of the federal universities to explain to Nigerians their challenges and why youths who pass JAMB examination can no longer be admitted to fill the available spaces in there universities.

“About 30 percent are being given admissions annually. For example, out of 1.6 million that wrote JAMB examination last year (2013), only 745, 000 spaces were available. Let me also now say, unfortunately, I have the statistic of what is happening, it is very painful that our institutions are not responding to these carrying capacities. They are not responding to them to the extent that as I’m talking today, most of the universities, especially federal universities, they have not filled up to 50 percent of their carrying capacities”, he said.