Political elite should send wards to Nigerian schools – JAMB

By: Our Reporter
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) wants Nigeria’s political elite to encourage their children to obtain their first degree at home before going for further studies abroad.

The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, told reporters on the sidelines of a workshop on intensive Training and Sensitisation Forum on Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) in Abuja that it would be worthwhile for such children to obtain their first degree in Nigeria where the public and private institutions are of high quality and standard rather than study abroad at institutions that are of poor quality and low standard.

”But if they wish to go for Masters, PhD and so on elsewhere, there is nothing bad about that,” he said.

“But for the first degree, we have enough universities here – both public and private because when most of them go outside Nigeria to study, they do that at private institutions.

“And I know countries in Africa where Nigerian students constitute 90 per cent of the class in every set as if those institutions were set up for Nigerians.

“What we are saying is that you have better value if you send your children to private universities in Nigeria than sending them to study at private universities of poor quality outside Nigeria.’’

Oloyede asked owners of private universities to consider the economic situation in the country and make tuition fees affordable for parents.

He said that the institutions were operating in a competitive world and that failure to check excessive increase in tuition fees could force many of the schools to close shop

He added:”I believe that private institutions are established for worthy purpose.

“I also believe that private institutions’ charges are high, but they are not as high as traveling outside the country and people still send large number of students to inferior universities.”