ASUU strike: JAMB warns universities against jumping academic sessions

Following the resumption of academic activities in public universities across Nigeria, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has offered an advisory to parents to interface with various institutions’ management regarding the status of their wards academic programmes.

The JAMB gave this advice against the backdrop of the suspension of strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), recently, a phenomenon that might have generated confusion on how to go about existing or halted academic programmes while the industrial action lasted.

JAMB insisted that it has no control on admission processes by universities, but at the same time, has not mandated the cancellation or deference of any admission.

The Registrar/Chief Executive of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, disclosed this shortly before he declared open the National Executive Council (NEC), meeting of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, in Abuja, yesterday.

He said that the affected universities, polytechnics or Colleges of Education must find a way to streamline all the existing academic programmes prior to the strike, which the ASUU had embarked on but called off recently.

Oloyede said students’ admission lied in the individual universities administrations, noting that about three different sessions are being run by various universities concurrently and must be concluded within their own stipulated timeframe.

According to him, while some universities are still in their 2020/2021 academic session, some other ones are in the 2021/2022 academic session and others in their 2022/2023 academic session.

According to him, candidates seeking admission have to interact with the respective institutions they applied to study to know the particular session being ran at the moment.

He maintained that JAMB has not cancelled any admission for any session and that no admission by the board has elapsed or will elapse, stressing that admission for any particular session would be determined by the Senate of the various universities.

He said: “Now that some normalcy is being restored in our tertiary institutions, particularly with regards to the universities, many people have been asking which session is being run, how we will get students back to campus. Please the onus of recruiting, engaging, admitting students lies virtually in the respective institutions.

“JAMB is a coordinating centre. JAMB cannot and will not determine how universities conduct their admissions.

“You are aware that some universities and some special institutions are still on their 2020-2021 academic session, some are on 2021-2022 academic session while some are in 2022-2023 academic session, so we have three academic sessions running concurrently in different parts of the country.

“So my advice, which I want to send through you, is that candidates should interact with their respective institutions, know which session is being run, which session is being patched and contact JAMB only for making sure that all their claims are validated.

“What I mean is that no admission has been cancelled for any session for any school, we except the Senate of that university, we have all admissions going on, they have not lapsed and it is now for the institutions to determine which and how to go about it.

“I want to use this opportunity to appeal to not only parents but to just contact the institution of their children to know where they are and then contact JAMB for whatever is necessary for proper documentation of their admission processes.”