One Million UTME Candidates Can't Get Admission - Education Minister

Education Minister, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai

The minister of education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai, has stated that over one million candidates who sat for the University Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) yesterday may not gain admission into the country's tertiary institutions for lack of space.

At a news conference in Abuja yesterday, while she was invigilating the UTME, the minister said the current capacity of the country's tertiary institutions was only 500,000.

This, she declared, could not accommodate the 1.7million candidates that sat for the UTME.

Prof. Rufai lamented the grossly inadequate number of universities in the country and appealed for more public-private partnerships for the establishment of additional tertiary schools to increase access to university education in Nigeria.

She noted that the growing number of students who enrolled for admission into tertiary institutions annually was alarming as revealed by the number of candidates who sat for this year's UTME.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) had announced that over 1.7 million candidates registered for the UTME, an increase of 13.35 per cent compared to last year's.

According to the minister, there is only space for one-third of these applicants and the remaining candidates, who may even meet the admission cut-off marks, might never be admitted.