Nigerian govt orders universities to exclude blind, deaf candidates from POST-UTME

The Federal Ministry of Education has ordered universities and other tertiary institutions in the country to exempt blind and deaf candidates from the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

Also to be excluded are prisoners and foreign centre candidates.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Sonny Echono, gave the order on Tuesday at the 2019 Policy meeting on admission organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in Gbongan, Osun State.

Echono said, “Admission to all programmes leading the award of  a first degree, national diploma and Nigeria Certificate in Education must be processed through the Central Admissions Processing System of JAMB. Also, all tertiary institutions must ensure that they update their matriculation lists on the Central Admissions Processing System as appropriate in content and on time.

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“The board and the tertiary institutions should ensure that candidates under the Special Needs category are considered for admission provided they meet the minimum requirements. They are; blind and deaf candidates, prison candidates, foreign centre candidates. These candidates should be exempted from any other test apart from the  routine scrutiny of their credentials.

“In order to halt the substitution of candidates with impersonators, JAMB has been directed to make available to all tertiary institutions the facial and finger images of the  candidates of each institution for  screening. It is therefore not permitted for any tertiary institution to retake fresh photographs or fingerprints.”

He added, “The system shall be monitored by the ministry and the  regulatory bodies – the National Universities Commission,  National Board for Technical Education and  National Commission for Colleges of Education. All reported cases must be administratively disposed of within three months.”

By Babatunde Alao…

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