The House of Representatives at its plenary session of Thursday, 24 May 2018 urged the Federal Ministry of Education to review downward the cost of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) application forms and make University and other Tertiary Education accessible and affordable. In this regard, the House recommended that the Federal Ministry reduce the cost of UTME application forms from the current N7, 500.00 (Seven Thousand Five Hundred Naira only) to not more than N3, 000.00 (Three Thousand Naira only) following a motion presented on the floor of the House by Hon. James Abiodun Faleke (APC:Kogi) on the subject.
Moving the motion, Hon. Faleke stated that the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) was said to have remitted the sum of N7.8 billion to the Federal Government as excess from the N12 billion made from sales of Unified Tertiary Examinations (UTME) application forms alone for University Admission in 2017. He stated that the sum from the sale of the UTME application forms in 2017 excluded incomes from the sales of other forms such as the Change of Course Forms and Change of University Forms which were sold at N5, 000.00 each. He also highlighted other expenses that were borne by students such as the Post UTME Examinations that are conducted by Universities at an average cost of N2,500 (Two Thousand Five Hundred Naira only) in addition to travelling expenses and other necessary logistics.
Speaking further, he added that the admission by the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board of having a surplus of N7 billion from the sale of UTME application forms meant that it had become a profit making venture to the detriment of educational and social development of the country. He also highlighted the increase in the number of Nigerian Universities from 12 at JAMB’s inception in 1978 with less than 50,000 candidates to over 400 Tertiary Institutions with more than 1.7 million candidates writing its examinations even though only half of those who wrote the examinations were admitted into University in 2017.
Hon. Faleke stressed that JAMB was not set up for profit making but was supposed to be a government agency promoting the educational development of young citizens. He criticised the current proliferation of Universities Polytechnics, Colleges of Education and other Tertiary Institutions under JAMB’s purview before concluding that education was the bedrock of development and should be made available to citizens at the barest minimum cost.
Following his submission, the House also urged the Federal Ministry of Education to ensure that the cost of the other ancillary forms was free or at the barest minimum and then mandated its Committee on Basic Education and Services to ensure compliance and report back within two weeks.
