FG lifts ban on post-UTME screening by varsities

The Federal Government has lifted the ban on the controversial examinations usually organised by universities in Nigeria for admission seekers after the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).

The Federal Government had last year ordered the scrapping of post-UTME for candidates.Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Guardian in Abuja yesterday, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said universities could now organise post-UTME as a pre-condition to gaining admission into universities in the country.

The minister, who however urged university authorities to make the fees for the screening affordable and not to impose huge financial burden on the parents, said: “We are going to allow universities to organise post-UTME if they want.

“We have asked them not to impose huge financial burden on the parents. The burden should not be more than what they can bear.”Adamu said that the Federal Government had stopped the scrapping of the examination to fully understand what was going on in universities, adding: “We are now wiser.”

The minister, who expressed confidence in the examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), said the management of JAMB had remitted N5 billion to the Federal Government coffers, which happens to be the highest so far in the last 40 years of the board’s existence.

He said: “Since JAMB was established more than 40 years ago, the total amount it has given government was N200 million, but in one year, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede has remitted N5 billion to government.

“The new JAMB registrar has been correcting many anomalies in the board. Within a year, he has been able to stop all the untold things that were happening there.