The Joint Action Coalition of Civil Society
Organization for Transparency in Governance
has endorsed the on-going reforms and innovations introduced by the
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to ease admission into the
nation's tertiary institutions, while also passing a vote of confidence on the
leadership of the Board led by its Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede.
The groups said the innovations will deal with
corruption in the educational sector and eradicate the problem of admission
racketeering.
Addressing a press conference on Sunday in Abuja,
Executive Director/Convener of the coalition,
Mr. Sabo Odeh condemned the recent attack on JAMB by
ASUU, accusing the union of being allergic to reforms and innovations being
introduced by JAMB under professor Oleyede
Odeh who was reacting to recent call by ASUU calling
for the scrapping of JAMB the coalition has become aware of recent ploy by ASUU
to hijack the tertiary education sector by ruse.
According to him the latest trick is via the
instrumentality of calling for the scrapping of the Joint Admissions and
Matriculation Board (JAMB). He the reforms introduced by JAMB into admission
process in Nigeria appears to have taken many members of ASUU engaged in
admission racketeering out of business and they are not happy.
He said, "If ASUU is allowed to dictate how
JAMB does it work, it is a matter of time before the lecturers set their sight
on WAEC, Secondary and even primary schools.
"The clamour by ASUU that each university
should be allowed to handle its own admission processes is an open call to
empower these admission syndicates operated by no other persons but ASUU
members.
Heeding ASUU’s ill-conceived call would send us back
to the problems that JAMB was set up to solve.
"In the years that preceded JAMB, it was common
to see some candidates secure admission into as many as five universities which
implies that four slots would we wasted as the student can only resume in one
school while several other candidates are made to wait another year at home
because these slots have been
wasted."
Odeh blamed ASSU for the decay in the education
sector that the country is today grappling to remedy, saying the union has lost
its moral compass and does not have the capacity to challenge the reforms being
introduced by JAMB under professor Oleyede.
He accused the union of frustrating interventions
that would re-establish Nigerian university as centre of excellence where
youths can pass through and favourably compete with their contemporaries from
any other top flight institutions on earth.
He however said Nigerians are now aware id their
antics and will ensure that the progress made by JAMB under Prof Oleyede is
sustained.
He said, "ASUU, as it did in the 90s, is giving
the impression that it is genuinely interested in the wellbeing of would be
undergraduates.
"We took time to study the situation with a
view to ascertaining if ASUU’s intervention in the way JAMB conducts its major
or mock examination is altruistic as they make it appear.
"Sadly, all that can be surmised from ASUU’s
interference in this process is that they have resumed their efforts to hijack
the education sector for their own purposes. Note that we say education sector
because they have gone beyond their remit as higher institution teachers to
dabble into academic levels that are outside their jurisdiction."
Has insisted that the reforms and innovations
introduced by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) remains the
best approach to ensure that only the best gets admitted into the nation's
tertiary institutions.
He said, "The embrace of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT), coupled with other policy direction has helped
JAMB make changes that increased the admission chances of applicants.
"It has for instance streamlined the options of
schools that candidates have based on careful analysis of trends. This
innovation is also responsible for the curtailing of the way ASUU members used
to manipulate admissions while side-lining JAMB."
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