The Academic Staff Union of Universities’ protracted strike had kept candidates’ admission prospects in doubt, but on Wednesday, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) allayed their concerns.
The Board stated that notwithstanding the strikes that had an impact on the academic calendar starting in 2020, it had not rescinded any admission offers it had given to applicants who took the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
ASUU had been on strike for eleven months in 2020 as COVID-19 was spreading.
The union went on strike for eight months this year, which caused the academic calendar to be thrown off.
The strikes by ASUU had led to a backlog of admissions which many public universities are battling to resolve.
The board however admonished the affected candidates to relate with their institutions of choice to find out the session they were currently in.
Registrar/Chief Executive of JAMB, Prof Is-haq Oloyede disclosed these shortly before he declared open the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) in Abuja.
He said the senate of universities was responsible for admission, adding that the role of JAMB was to supervise the process to ensure that candidates were not shortchanged.
According to Prof Oloyede, the 2020/2021, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 sessions were being run by various universities.
According to him, while some universities are still in their 2020/2021 academic session, others are in the 2021/22 academic session and some universities in their 2022/2023 academic session.
He advised candidates seeking admission to interact with the respective institutions to know the particular session they are running.
Prof Oloyede assured that no admission by the board has elapsed or will elapse, stressing that admission for any particular session would- be determined by the senate of the various universities.
He also advised students seeking admission to contact the institution of their choice on the session being run by the school.
Oloyede said: “The onus of admitting students lie on the respective institutions. JAMB is a coordinating centre. JAMB cannot and will not determine how institutions calendar. You are aware that universities and special institutions are still in their 2020/2021 academic session. Some are on the 2021/2022 academic session and some are on the 2022/2023 academic session.
“We have three academic sessions running in universities in different parts of the country. My advice is that candidates should interact with their respective institutions to know which session is going on and contact JAMB only on
“No admission has been cancelled for any session, or for any institutions except the senate of that institution says so.
“We have all admissions for these three sessions and they have not lapsed and they will not lapse and it is now for the institutions to determine which and how to go about it.”