ASUU: Universities Suspend 461,745 Students’ Admission Over Ongoing Strike

A total of 461,745 admissions have not been processed by Nigerian universities as a result of the suspension of admissions.

However, the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board attributed the development to the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ strike in the information it provided to our correspondent.

In the document obtained by BRANDNEWSDAY, JAMB stated that “several universities confirmed suspending the process due to the ASUU strike; ASUU strike is a factor; numerous colleges have failed to begin 2021 admissions despite repeated requests.”

A total of 36,947 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination students processed their admissions in private universities, according to information our correspondent obtained.

Academic operations at federal and state universities have remained severely hampered by strike actions by university-based unions like ASUU, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, and other affiliated institutions.

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For example, during the term of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the ASUU went on strike for 150 days in 1999, for 90 days in 2001, for 14 days in 2002, for 180 days in 2003, for 14 days in 2005, for three days in 2006, and for 90 days in 2007.

The union went on strike for seven days in 2008 and 120 days in 2009 while Umaru Yarad’ua was in office.

The union left the classroom for 150 days in 2010, 59 days in 2011, and 150 days in 2013 under former President Goodluck Jonathan.

ASUU also went on strike four times during the presidency of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret.).

The union went on strike for 30 days in 2017 and for 90 days in 2018, both years when academic activities were suspended.

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ASUU went on strike for 270 days in 2020, which stakeholders claim was the longest strike in Nigerian history.

ASUU has been on strike for about 186 days so far in 2022, and there is no sign of it ending soon.

Academic activities are interrupted during strikes.

According to the statistics provided to our correspondent, the strike has not yet ended admissions for the 2021–2022 session, which should have ended by now.

In addition, JAMB announced that 774,411 admission quotas were distributed to federal, state, and private colleges in Nigeria, for a total of 774,411.

There were allotted 424,442 quotas for the federal universities.

Despite more than 595,757 candidates applying to just 10 federal universities, our correspondent found that only 136,527 admissions were actually processed.

Prior to the start of the strike, state colleges were only able to handle 139,192 of the 232,801 admissions they were allotted.

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Similar to this, JAMB acknowledged that 117,411 admission quotas were given to private universities overall, but the board pointed out that only 36,947 of those quotas were really filled.

Further review of the data indicated that some programmes also had lots of empty admission quotas.

For instance, of the 39,850 applicants to Medicine/Pharmacy, only 33,671 were accepted prior to the strike’s start.

Despite the 89,747 admissions threshold set by JAMB, social sciences departments only accepted 53,723 candidates.

Similarily, just 70,221 students from the Sciences department, which had 121,696 quotas, were admitted.

Despite 58,451 quotas overall and 31,478 quotas for the arts and humanities, only 35,051 engineering and technology applicants were accepted.

In a similar vein, the board reported that only 5,630 of the 8,055 allotted quotas for Law were filled.

According to further figures provided by JAMB, the strike also had an impact on admissions for the 2020 recruitment process.

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However, the board stated that 551,553 admissions were handled in total.

The board said that a total of 1,649,310 individuals applied for admission to universities for the class of 2022/2023.

The board noted that over 500,000 of these applicants applied to 10 federal universities, including the University of Ilorin, University of Lagos, Nnamdi Azikwe University, Bayero University Kano, University of Benin, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello University, and University of Ibadan, even though it did not break down the applications by category of universities sought.

This is one of the effects of the ASUU strike, said Programme Director for Reform Education Nigeria, Ayodamola Oluwatoyin, in an interview with our correspondent. Activities are halted when there is a strike.

“What hope do people who took the UTME in 2022 have if those who took it before them haven’t been accepted yet?

Branch congresses will start on Monday, according to sources within the ASUU National Executive Council who spoke with our correspondent.

Exclusive information revealed that the union has started discussions over the outcomes of the meeting with Emeritus Professor Nimi-Briggs.

Branch congresses will unquestionably begin on Monday, according to the source.

Meanwhile, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president, reiterated that the union would not end its strike.

“You heard the minister say that they would not pay us for the months we did not work. We have already given him an answer; we will move to a fresh session entirely,” Osodeke said.