Most universities, polytechnics, colleges and other tertiary institutions have specified number of students they are allowed by the National University Commission (NUC) and their professional councils that they are allowed to train and graduate. I will quickly paint a picture of how this works. When a tertiary institution wants to start a new programme it will file an application to the NUC who will examine the document and then fix a date to officially verify that the institution has facilities for the proposed programme. The NUC team will also determine how many students the available facilities can cater for, and this is what primarily influences the quota given the tertiary institution at the commencement of the admission process. With the go-ahead given by the NUC, the institution can then commence student recruitment. The sensible thing to do for such institution is to admit a number of students that is not overly above the NUC quota. If the quota is 50 for instance, 55 (110%) or 60 (120%) can be admitted to account for normal attrition that results from students dropping out, changing institutions, or repeating levels.

Contrary to all sense of decency and sanity, what we now have in the country's tertiary institutions is the over of admission to fresh students in a number that is several multiples of the NUC quota. Using the example of NUC quota of 50, we have situations where institutions will issue admission letters to as many as 300 students! The fact that all of such hapless students are made to pay school fees while such institutions know without a doubt that there is no real vacancy for 250 students makes it one hell of a scam. The fact that such hapless students are eventually turned away without a refund of the money paid confirms this as an evil plot by such institutions. And it amazes me that the Buhari government whose sole mantra is the rooting out of corruption has not seen it fit to look into this. The majority of such students, the victims of this educational scam, are from very poor households. I recently came across one of such that was offerred admission into a school of nursing in Kwara state. The school admitted over 300 students when it only had space for 50 students. Each of the admitted students was made to pay school fees in excess of #100,000. By the time the excess was turned away not a single dime was refunded to those robbed students.
This doesn't seem right. Yet it happens. Sadly the victims of such have come to view it as the norm.

When admission letters are issued to students, such students should become the responsibility of the issuing institution to train and to educate. Our institutions should be made to realize that there is nothing good about the gloat over how many students are sent away for failure to master the curriculum. And NUC should modify its quota system to specify the number of students each institution can admit, and not just the number that it can graduate.