ASUU okays admission screening in varsities

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said that it was satisfied with the ongoing admission screening process in some universities across the country.

The National President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, made the remark in Lagos.

Following the scrapping of the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) by the Federal Government, the universities came up with fresh measures to screen candidates for the 2016/2017 admission.

Ogunyemi, who is also a lecturer at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun, said, “I want to say that so far, we are satisfied with the screening procedure.

“We cannot be in all the institutions at a time, but reports reaching us and from our observations, the universities are on the right track.

“You see, no dictation from outside the universities can stop the institutions from doing this screening.

“It is part of the procedures spelt out by the Senate of the various universities for admission of candidates.

“Government can only provide guidelines such as quota for the academically less-advantaged areas, but the issue of merit is strictly for the universities to determine.”

He urged the universities not to lose focus in ensuring that only qualified candidates were admitted into the respective programmes in the institutions.

According to him, the screening will also raise the quality of undergraduates which will transform to quality graduates.

The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, had recently announced the scrapping of post-UTME while declaring open a Combined Policy Meeting on admission into the tertiary institutions.

Adamu said it was unnecessary to subject admission seekers to another round of examinations after the UTME, which was conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).