JAMB rolls out modalities to absorb student returnees from Sudan crisis

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB)has rolled out modalities for the absorption of returnee students from war-torn countries into Nigerian universities.

This is disclosed in a statement by the board’s Head, Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday.

Benjamin said the modalities were follow-ups to the high level meeting between the Federal Ministry of Education, Federal Ministry of Health, JAMB, Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), National Universities Commission(NUC) and other critical stakeholders.

He said the meeting was on the integration of returnee Nigerian students from war-torn countries into the nation’s tertiary education system.

He quoted the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, while presenting the modalities as saying that it was imperative to hold talks with the Vice Chancellors following the peculiarities of each university and the variation in the responses received from them on the matter.

Oloyede pointed out that the emergency meeting was, therefore, convened to fashion out uniform standards and minimum acceptable benchmarks for the proposed absorption in line with global best practices.

He also stated that the Senate of each university had the right to decide on university transfers and needed not wait for JAMB to initiate such adding that the parley with the stakeholders was to present the modalities for critique as well as receive inputs.

He reminded the Vice Chancellors to key into the earlier Advisory sent to universities on the procedures for processing applications for foreign and domestic inter-university transfers.

He said that the current Advisory on the returnees does not override the earlier one but rather served to reinforce it by strengthening the procedures for transfers.

”According to the latest Advisory on procedures for emergency transfers of returning students, each of them is mandated to do a retroactive registration with the education ministry.

”They are to visit the returnee application page on IBASS as accessible from the JAMB website, where the returnee students would upload their registration slips, complete the transfer of personal data.

”The personal data would include their name, NIN, telephone number, active e-mail account, current university, country, city of study and programme, year and current level of study, JAMB said.

‘According to the new procedures, the returnee students would select their preferred university of choice, programme and upload the scanned copies of their current university admission letter, transcript, data page of their international passport and a sworn affidavit confirming the genuineness of uploaded documents.

”The returnee students are directed to click SUBMIT for onward movement to their university of choice, which would receives a notification as well as an IBASS mail on the application for evaluation of the returnee’s credentials. If the returnee is found worthy of admission, a notification is sent to him/her on the status of the admission.

”Consequently, successful returnees students would be directed via email and SMS to approach any JAMB Office in person to complete the inter- university transfer application,” he said.

The registrar charged the Vice Chancellors to be vigilant and thoroughly scrutinise the certificates submitted to their institutions to avoid any pitfall that could impugn their hard-earned reputation.

Stakeholders from the FME, NUC, NiDCOM and Vice Chancellors, who aligned themselves with the position of JAMB, promised to support the initiative.