NUC commends, recommends FUNAAB decentralized screening to universities …as varsity admits 3,800 out of 17, 334 candidates
By Sam Otti
The National Universities Commission (NUC) has commended the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), for successfully carrying out the 2016/2017 pre-admission screening for prospective students of the university. Out of the 17,334 candidates that applied for admission into the university, only 3,800 would be admitted this year.
The Senior Information and Monitoring Officer of NUC, Mr. Mohammed Tanko, who represented NUC at the occasion, lauded the logistics, welfare, thoroughness and adherence to laid-down procedures. He stated that his task was to monitor the screening exercise, to ensure that the university does not breach the directive of the Federal Government given through the Minister of Education.
“I observed that the security arrangements were properly made. The traffic and strategy that were deployed by both the internal and external security personnel, the Department of State Services (DSS) officers, which I saw on ground and men of other sister-agencies, who participated in the screening, were very much commendable,” he said. “The strategy of the decentralised screening centre (as adopted by FUNAAB) was commendable, as students were well taken care of while transportation logistics was also commendable.”
He stated the inclusion of security agents among members of the screening panel was encouraging, especially, those from the National Drug and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the DSS. They interviewed and studied the students and this helped to drop students, who are not competent enough to gain admission into federal universities.
“I am very proud of the process and the formation of the panel because we have to ensure that candidates, who are qualified, are admitted while those who do not merit admission do not come and take the place of those who we really need to be productive agents in the future,” he noted.
He charged the university to keep up the high standards, most especially, in the maintenance of the campus environment and to continue to ensure quality as “we expect to have quality graduate output that would compete in private and public sectors within and outside the country. So, I advise that you adhere to NUC guidelines in the areas of admission quota, rules and regulations that would come from the government through the Federal Ministry of Education.”
The Vice-Chancellor of FUNAAB and President, Association of African Universities, Prof. Olusola Oyewole, who monitored the exercise, disclosed that the screening exercise was very important, to ensure that only responsible and qualified students, who would add value to the quality of the educational system were admitted.
Speaking on the resumption date for stale students, he revealed that the committee that was set up to investigate the recent students’ unrest had just submitted its report, adding that the Senate would soon sit to consider the report and take a decision on the new resumption date for the University.
On necessary machinery put in place to ensure a successful screening exercise, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and the Chief Coordinating Officer for the 2016/2017 Pre-Admission Screening Exercise, Prof Oluyemisi Eromosele, said that buses were stationed at the camp area as well as the university main gate, to convey students to the main centres namely: the FUNAAB Ceremonial Building, College of Management Sciences (COLMAS), Unity Building, Directorate of Public Relations as well as the College of Plant Science and Crop Production (COLPLANT).
Prof. Eromosele pointed out that of the 17,334 applicants that applied for admission into the University, only about 3,800 would eventually be admitted after conducting the exercise, both for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and Direct Entry candidates that spread across the 10 colleges of the University because FUNAAB had a quota of 3,850, as approved by NUC for the past two years.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) further stated that, “we are also hoping that there would be a supplementary admission later on in the month while shortlisted candidates would equally be screened.”
She said the admission process ensured that the 45 per cent was on merit, 35 per cent was on catchment while 20 per cent was on educationally less disadvantaged states (EDLS) quota.
Speaking on the criteria used in inviting students for the screening exercise, Prof Eromosele said: “we used the composite scores of 50 per cent of their school certificate results and 50 per cent of their JAMB scores. We have cases of some students with very high JAMB scores, who did not input their WAEC results properly and because of that we could not process their results. There were also cases of those with high scores but wrong JAMB subject combinations and they were screened out at the first stage.”
