Exploiting the inadequate monitoring of privately-owned tertiary institutions, Nacabs Polytechnic, Akwanga, a privately-owned institution, runs a curiously relaxed admission policy that sidesteps JAMB examination and demands precious little in the shape of entry requirements prerequisites.
The polytechnic’s biggest attraction is its admission policy, which ensures that applicants do not have to endure the inconvenience of writing the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, examination. As a result many who had failed the examination a few times or those unwilling to sit for such have been flocking to the school.
The polytechnic assures them that they are not required to write the examination. What is required is the capability to pay N6, 500 as cost of a JAMB form/admission letter. This appears to be a way of convincing applicants that they are being offered admission genuinely.
After such payment, applicants are informed that their names will be forwarded to JAMB, with which the polytechnic claims to have an arrangement that grants exemptions to applicants coming through it.
Proprietor of the polytechnic, David Abuluya, told icirnigeria.org that he got JAMB to grant exemption to candidates applying through his polytechnic.
“JAMB has given us authority to regularise them (students). When we get their names, there is a certain amount that JAMB charges (N6,500) and the list of students will be drafted an sent,” Abuluya told our reporter at the Nacabs campus in Akwanga.
“So, when JAMB works on the list of students that come to us through it, it exempts these ones (whose names are on the list sent by the school) from writing the exam and gives them JAMB numbers. It is with these numbers that they can go to the board’s website and print their admission letters,” he added.
But icirnigeria.org investigation showed that the proprietor’s claims are false and would get Nacabs graduates into difficulty, as they would be ineligible for the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, programme. And without the NYSC discharge certificate, they would not be able to seek employment in the public service or seek election in future.
Abuluya’s claim of exemption was flatly denied by the examination body. JAMB’s head of public relations, Fabian Benjamin, said it is preposterous for any polytechnic proprietor to claim that his students have been exempted from taking the JAMB exam, adding that the board has no knowledge of what goes on in the school.
“We are not aware of anything he is doing. It is not possible that JAMB gave its approval. Some schools which have accreditation from their regulatory bodies run preliminary programmes. Others run remedial studies or whatever they want to do, we do not care. What we do is that when these candidates go through these programmes, they still have to write JAMB exam. The point here is that whatever you are doing is like a coaching class,” Benjamin said.
According to the JAMB spokesman, the school may get away with its dodgy admission process, but only at the National Diploma level.
Culled from http://icirnigeria.org/
