By Saheed Ibrahim

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The Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has warned tertiary institutions to stop admissions of the underage, describing it as “illegal.“

Oloyede warned at the opening of the seventh biennial conference of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors of State-Owned Universities in Nigeria on Tuesday in Lagos.

He said that for the sake of accountability, data protection and integrity of the nation, this act needed to stop because anything irregular is illegal.

“About two months ago, I received a letter from a European country to confirm if a student graduated from a particular university because she is 15 years old and applied for a postgraduate course. The question they asked me was “Is this possible in Nigeria?

“I had to call the Vice Chancellor of the institution and he confirmed the student graduated from the university but was not admitted by JAMB.

“He had to include that he was not the VC at the time the student was admitted,” Oloyede said.

He noted that state-owned universities must do a lot in this situation because they constituted more in number than federal universities.

“Also illegal admission of diploma students needs to stop because last year, we admitted 9,000 diploma students; I was alarmed that about 3,000 students came from a particular university.

“Every one of us should be accountable because all these acts can damage our education system,” Oloyede said.

Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, former Chief of Staff to the President urged the pro-chancellors to make a plan of action on how they could make their institutions as competent and attractive as federal and private universities.

Gambari said that by so doing, it ensured that they retain some of the best faculty and staff which attracted the best in the pool of eligible students.