Parents, Students Protest JAMB's High Cut Off Marks At UNILAG

The commencement of the University of Lagos registration for the 2015/2016 session screening of candidates for the JAMB’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination was marred today by a peaceful protest.

The school's Registrar, Dr Taiwo Ipaye, earlier said that only 9,000 out of the 32,000 candidates that applied for admission into the university were eligible for screening.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), some of the parents of the candidates who brought their children to the campus for the exercise, expressed their disappointments over their children’s exclusion from the JAMB’s list of shortlisted candidates.

A medical practitioner and parent, Dr Ben Emone, expressed dissatisfaction at whatever reasons both the university and JAMB were posting for the sudden change in procedure.

"I will not take this whole thing they are trying to explain because my son passed the UTME convincingly. If there was to be any change, we should have been sensitised well ahead of time, and not just waking-up one morning to change the rule of the game. All I am saying is that my son must write this Post UTME or nobody will," he said.

The National President, Association of Tutorial School Operators, Mr Sodunke Oludotun, blamed the crisis on the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde. He alleged that Ojerinde was insensitive to the plights of parents.

"I think Prof. Ojerinde has some questions to answer on this whole issue. There must be something he is not telling the public. Ojerinde must stop running JAMB as if it is his personal business empire.

How can Ojerinde impose such high and unacceptable cutoff marks for five notable public universities in Nigeria under the guise of catchment, to qualify for post UTME, and you expect us not to protest.

The worst case scenario at least ought to have been the normal 200 marks and above, which universities like UNILAG and others were known for. If there must be anything new, it should be introduced next year after due consultations with all critical stakeholders, and get the public adequately sensitised.

For now, all we want is for all the candidates the cut-off mark of 200 and above to be allowed to sit for the post UTME or we go to court," he said.

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