‘Over 600,000 candidates won't get admitted ...tertiary institutions have only 800,000 spots'

Almost half of the 1.4 million candidates that sat for the 2015 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) will not be able to secure admission this session.

This was revealed by the Registrar and Chief Executive of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor ‘Dibu Ojerinde on Wednesday.

According to him, the carrying capacity of all tertiary institutions in the country is less than 800,000, meaning there is a shortfall of 600,000 candidates.

Ojerinde, said this knowledge was behind the Board’s decision to redistribute candidates from overloaded institutions to where admissions could be offered to them.

“We said some institutions are overloaded and some do not have candidates. We now said let us redistribute the candidates so that they will not lose out finally or delayed," he said.

“I’m talking about those who score 240 and above. Forget about 200 because they are so many yet our universities are not full.

"The Polytechnics, Colleges of Education don’t have candidates."

Ojerinde lamented that the move was opposed the people it was meant to help, adding that it indicated that Nigerians are not ready to resolve the problem.