From: Gabriel Dike

No fewer than 1.5 million candidates preparing for the May/June 2017 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) may miss out of this year’s admission into tertiary institutions should the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) go ahead to implement its new policy of excluding awaiting result candidates.

Already, several stakeholders have condemned the JAMB directive to exclude awaiting result candidates who will write the 2017 school examination nationwide from sitting for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scheduled for May 6 to 20.

JAMB Registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, had stirred the hornets nest when he announced that awaiting result candidates, those without results of West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) will not be allowed to sit for the 2017 UTME.

SEE THE OFFICIAL WEAC 2017 TIME-TABLE FOR NIGERIA HERE

The JAMB announcement generated ripples nationwide and created tension among candidates, parents and schools preparing students for the May/June 2017 WASSCE.

Statistics from WAEC indicate that 1.566,590million candidates registered for the May/June 2017 WASSCE and stakeholders warned that if the JAMB Registrar is allowed to implement the policy, the candidates will be affected and have to wait for next year’s admission exercise.

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At the 11th edition of ‘’We Are The Future of Our Nation’’ meant for secondary school pupils, some teachers and students asked the Federal Government to reverse the new JAMB policy stating that if the policy is allowed to stay, SS 111 students preparing for WAEC will spend one year at home.

The Proprietor of Success Academy, Abule-Egba, Lagos, Mr. Leke Sotunde, described the new policy as unacceptable and appealed to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu to halt the implementation warning that ‘’the implication of the policy will be unimaginable if the government watch Prof Oloyede to deny over one million students admissions this year.’’

Sotunde accused Prof. Oloyede of pursuing anti masses agenda with the new policy and reminded him that the immediate past JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde was sacked for introducing similar admission policy without government approval which led to mass protest. He said from WAEC yearly statistics on the May/June WASSCE, over one million students will be affected.

President, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr. Michael Olukoya, kicked against the JAMB policy and stated that the board has no powers to deny awaiting result candidates the right for admission in 2017.

Mr. Dotun Sodunke, the President of Association of Tutorial Schools operators (ATSO), faulted the board’s new admission policy on awaiting result candidates warning that the decision would affect millions of SS111 students writing this year’s WASSCE.

Daily Sun learnt that some Parents Teacher Association (PTA) of government-owned secondary schools are uncomfortable with the policy and have reached out to top government officials to stop the implementation.

In 2016, JAMB under former Registrar, Prof. Ojerinde attempted to foster the same policy by excluding awaiting result candidates and it back fired when ATSO, PTA of Federal Government Colleges and other key stakeholders kicked against the policy which later dropped.