How we determine most popular Nigerian universities — JAMB

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board
(JAMB) has said it does not use students’
checklist in determining applicants’ preferred
schools, contrary to a news report.
Meanwhile, according to a press published release from Economic Confidential , which named the University of Ilorin as the 2016 most preferred university among student
applicants.

Unilorin had the highest student applicants of 103,238 (males – 51, 082 and females – 52, 156).

The report said that academic stability, popularity, affordability, available facilities and
quality of lecturers were factors students
considered before choosing their preferred
institutions.

While Speaking to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, JAMB spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, said the students’ checklist as outlined in the report was not determined by JAMB.

“JAMB has no way of determining these factors from information available to us through the frequency of schools chosen by Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates,” Mr. Benjamin said.

“What we do each year, is to roll out data on
the institutions with the highest number of
applicants.

“For some years now, the University of Ilorin
has been topping that chart, this does not mean that the school is the best in the country. It just shows students’ preferences,” he said.

Unilorin goes on Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) strike actions, a problem
that plagues many federal universities in the
country.

Also, Unilorin was said to have one of the fastest academic calendars of all institutions
in the country.
However, in the 2016/2017 global ranking
carried out by Times Higher Education
(THE), University of Ibadan was the only
Nigerian university that made the list at 801.

Teaching, research citations of scholarly
publications, industry income and international
outlook were the factors for determining the
ranking.
Yet, for 2016, Unilorin surpassed the University of Ibadan in preferred student
choices.

As for the determinants earlier mentioned by
Economic Confidential, Mr. Benjamin said JAMB was not in a position to know why students choose their institutions.

“We only have access to the number of
students who choose these schools. We cannot determine why they do so. UTME candidates are not asked why they choose schools,” he said.

“For instance, if we have 1.6 million candidates
applying through JAMB and 120,000 candidates choose University of Ilorin as first choice, automatically it becomes the most popular choice for that year, that is how we arrive at our data,” he explained.

He however said every other data as presented by the magazine were accurate as the figures were gotten directly from JAMB.

According to the report by magazine, University of Ilorin, University of Benin, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Bayero University, Kano were the most popular federal university choices for 2016.

Also, Nasarawa State University, Imo State
University, Kaduna State University, Delta State University and Adekunle Ajasin University were the most popular state university choices for 2016.

While Covenant University, Afe Babalola
University, Babcock University, Igbinedion
University and Bowen University are the most
popular private university choices for 2016.


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