SINCE she was in junior secondary school, 17-year-old Feranmi* has always had a soft spot for legal practice. Her mind was simply made up: It was either law or nothing. And so she worked hard to make this dream come true. After hearing about the success rate of the annual Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board (JUPEB) examination, her dad, Mr Adeleke, paid well above N200,000 to enrol her at an approved study centre.

For ten gruelling months in 2016, Feranmi studied day and night. Thankfully when the examination was finally over, her hard work paid off as she had the second highest score possible: 15 out of 16. Her dream was closer than she imagined, she thought. But she was wrong. Obafemi Awolowo University offered her admission into the Department of History instead. This not only applied brakes to her dream, it shattered her spirit.

“I don’t feel happy in general,” she told her mom months into her second year at the university, “because of this course I’m doing right now, which I know I don’t deserve but there’s nothing I can do.”

She added: “Most times, I force myself to read just to pass the examinations. There’s no interest and there’s no joy in doing it.”

Mrs Adeleke learnt from Feranmi’s close friends in school that she has been skipping lectures because of her lack of interest in the course.

According to OAU’s Centre for Distance Learning, “JUPEB is a National Examination body saddled with the responsibility of conducting examinations for students, who have undergone approved subject combinations and are seeking Direct Entry admissions into Nigerian and partnering foreign tertiary institutions.”

The programme was approved by the federal government in December 2013 and officially kicked off the following year with a merger of ten universities, including OAU.


An unjust system… a mother’s distress

Feranmi’s mother, not only her daughter, has had to bear a great deal of the heartache. She tried her best to understand why her child did not get her preferred course, but her findings only caused her more emotional pain.

When she met the JUPEB Coordinator at the university, she was told she was denied admission into the law faculty because they did not have a perfect score of 16 out of 16 — only for her to discover many other candidates who scored as low as 10 are now studying their dream course, law.

She took her grievance to the Admissions Officer but nothing came out of it. Aluko, who chairs the Admission Committee, told her point blank she could not change her course back to law upon resumption, though successful transfer candidates abound on campus.

He also gave the excuse that the university considers catchment areas and states of origin in offering admission. When he was told Feranmi in fact has that to their advantage, he could not put up any more defence.

“An admission list was never released,” Mrs Adeleke told The ICIR. “Even a few days before the matriculation, many candidates with lower scores were given admission into the same course for which others who scored higher were rejected.”

“How do we encourage our youth to imbibe hard work when there is no incentive?” she questioned rhetorically.

“I’d initially resigned to fate by encouraging my child to accept the course eventually offered and telling her it could be the will of God. But each time I visit her in school, my daughter complains about her lack of interest and protests why, after her hard work, her spot was given to others.”

Mrs Adeleke also said the unfair system of admission is not exclusive to the faculty of law or the direct entry process. It happens under the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scheme, in other departments that are in high demand, and has been in place at the university for years.

She believes the admission list ought to be made transparent, with each student’s score on display for verification.

The ICIR gathered that, for instance, Orimogunje Iyanu had an aggregate score of 10 in the JUPEB examination, Bamisaye Peace had 12, and Ayela Rebbeca is also reported to have scored less than 14 — all students of the faculty of law where the cut-off mark was 16/16.


“It is not fair”, other affected students speak out

Sophia Adenola, a 200L student of the Department of English, confirmed to The ICIR that certain candidates with lower scores more often than not get rewarded with their desired courses of study while those who perform better are given unsought departments.

She said the JUPEB programme was “very stressful” for her as she had to read a lot for three different examinations. Eventually, she scored 13 in the final examination. One was added to everyone’s score, to make hers 14 out of 16. She said she knows approximately 15 of her colleagues who successfully “upgraded” their courses, but she is not sure of what all their scores were.

“When we got to OAU, some people were doing change of course,” she narrated. “But that is if you know someone there. Someone that even had nine (9) did a change of course successfully because she knows someone, and she was given the law course she wanted.”

“It is not fair,” she added. “We all worked hard, into the night, burning candles for almost a year. It’s unfair.”

Another student of the university who gained admission through the JUPEB examination, and scored 13/15, had a similar story. She said it is not surprising because “there is no university in Nigeria where there isn’t favouritism.”

“But that doesn’t make it right,” she added.

She thinks what mostly happens is the university has a quota for the number of people they want to admit for a course, and then they consider the next best scorers for admission after all the slots are filled.

“But then we still have cases of people who have 12 or 11 getting admitted for Law. I know someone who had 13 points like me and also had Law.”

“If it’s possible for the system to change, I would want it to because it’s quite painful,” she concluded.

Another student of the Faculty of Arts, who is in his penultimate year, revealed to The ICIR that admission racketeering takes place at the university, as in most other Nigerian tertiary institutions.

“In 2015, when the cut off for the Faculty of Law was 297,” he narrated, “many could not meet up. While a candidate with just two marks less than the cut-off was not offered admission, some were offered courses far from Law such as Dramatic Arts. Meanwhile, there are people with just 201 who were admitted to the faculty.”

The same trend of incidents occurred at the College of Health Sciences, he said. According to him, because of the perceived injustice, many students have opted to drop out after seeing their mates who only scored 200 in the examination remain at the college. Others end up not attending lectures because of disinterest. Some of these students were offered Agriculture though their marks only fell short of the cut-off with five or points.

“In fact, there was a boy, Timi, who secured his admission because of his father’s influence as a lecturer,” the source said.

“Even when you are qualified for admission with better scores above some people’s own, you need to know those in authority to secure the admission.”


Admission for sale

Information found online appear to suggest that it is common practice for students to also pay for admission slots at the Obafemi Awolowo University — a practice known as slot-trading.

According to Wuyi Peter, owner of Wuyi’s Edu. Consultancy who says he has been assisting aspiring students with their admission since 2007, the earlier a candidate submits his application to a staff member or “runs man” the better. These slots may either be bought or given out of goodwill.

“I must let you know that even if you have anyone to whom you have submitted your admission request and they are using a slot they have or have bought for you,” he writes, “please don’t leave them alone, don’t let them rest.”

“Let them feel your urge for the admission because without that, believe me, no matter how much they have collected from you for the slot they are using for you, there will be people who will be willing to pay more after the cut-offs are released.

“And trust me, most ‘runsmen’ don’t have enough strength to rebuke any better offer considering what the new candidate is paying more than you. They will just return your money to you after the admission lists are released and your name is not there, and even at that it’ll still mean they gained while you lose.”


Confirm your source, replies OAU JUPEB Programme Officer

When Kunle Alagbe, the university’s JUPEB Programme Officer, was contacted by The ICIR, he insisted he wanted to know how his phone number was obtained. When our reporter questioned the relevance of that information, he said: “That means your question as well is not relevant.”

“Excuse me,” he continued after it was pointed out that he works for a public institution. “If you can’t tell me where you got my number, whatever you’re telling me is not relevant to me please.”

He added that The ICIR needs to confirm its source and recommended that all complaints be directed to “the main university in form of a letter”.

When he was asked which official of the institution the letter should be directed to, he simply said: “Well you have to it get from your source, please.”

When a call was placed to Mabayoje Aluko, Chairman of OAU’s Admission Committee and Dean of Social Sciences, he excused himself as he was at a meeting and asked to be called later. Calls to his phone after this time were however not answered and text messages sent to him have not been replied.

In a texted response to The ICIR, however, Kehinde Awofisayo, the university’s admission officer, said the claims are false “to the best of my knowledge”.

---

*Pseudonyms are used in this report in place of the actual names of the students to protect their identities and studentship.

---

Source: https://www.icirnigeria.org/unjust-jupeb-seeking-admission-to-oau-whom-you-know-may-count-above-what-you-know/

OAU Admission Rush
Being around OAU since 2006—first as a candidate, then as an undergraduate, then as a postgraduate student, and also as a known educational consultant in Ife—has given me a huge load of experience over how admission goes in Obefemi Awolowo UnIversity (OAU) at whatever level—from the level of the pre-degree, to the undergraduate (UTME and DE), and to the postgraduate; so much for refusing to leave Ife as almost everyone does when they manage to finish their first degree programme in OAU. No one loves to come back to OAU after escaping the school the first time (the word 'love' in the statement was carefully chosen). But people like me, we just act like OAU is the only university in the country, and we can’t afford to not be there. And sometimes, it does really feel as though OAU is the only university in the country. I mean, does it not sound like the lion is the only animal in the forest sometimes? Continue reading the article here>>>>https://www.pecngr.com/2019/10/oau-admission-rush-tags-nairaland-oau.html?m=1

It’s no news anymore that OAU has released to JAMB the first batch of the names of people who have been offered admission by the institution, remaining for JAMB to upload it on their portal. At least everyone on the list can now see a certain change on their CAPS on JAMB’s website (i.e. change from NOT ADMITTED YET to PROCESSING ADMISSION). But before I continue on expatiating the admission news, let me take advantage of this topic to explain once again that—contrary to what almost everyone thinks—it is not JAMB that offers admission but the school you have applied to, and CAPS is only a platform JAMB uses to monitor the admission processes of every school to make sure no one is offered more than one admission when there are people who didn’t even get one. In simpler terms, your school—after screening you—determines the criteria they want to use to admit applicants, they make a list of the applicants they have considered for admission based on the criteria they have determined or through any other means that could make the applicant qualify for the consideration for admission (runs, slots, etc.), they release the lists to JAMB, and JAMB uploads them to their web (CAPS). This should be enough to make it clear how it is not JAMB that offers admission but the school. This could seem like unneeded information, but for those having issues with their schools and JAMB over their admission; they cannot see this information as useless. CONTINUE READING HERE>>>> https://www.pecngr.com/2019/10/oau-set-to-release-first-batch-tags-oau.html?m=1

How Slots, “Runs” and Admission Processing work in OAU
Being a “runsman” (as they address us), I have gotten to be in conversations with candidates and parents who only know there are things called slots, “runs”, and admission processing, but really don’t understand how they work. I have also conversed with candidates and parents who don’t even know a thing about all these things I just mentioned. Hence, it becomes a call on a runsman cum blogger like me to take advantage of blogging to explain this issue which causes problems for OAU runsmen like me. I’ll start from explaining how slots work in OAU. Continue reading here>>>>>>https://www.pecngr.com/2019/11/how-slots-runs-and-admission-processing.html?m=1

Still Waiting on OAU’s Admission List
The year is having just few of working days left, the school is already one week into her Rain (Second) Semester exams, and most Predegree, UTME and DE applicants are yet to have their names on CAPS as offered admission. What is happening? Why is OAU overly slow about this admission processes, and is it safe to keep waiting on OAU hoping when they eventually release all their batches of admission lists, your name will be there. Here are the questions applicants and their parents have been asking recently, and I want to address these questions in this write-up. CONTINUE READING HERE>>>>>> https://www.pecngr.com/2019/12/still-waiting-on-oaus-admission-list.html

“Transfer Approval” and “Admission Eligibility Newly Introduced on CAPS: The Possible Effects
The introduction of Admission Eligibility to CAPS is the newest function to add to the web, and I can already tell it’s a very good one. Good one because aspirants and their wards won’t have to wait on an admission that will never be given again. You just check your eligibility for the course you are under consideration for, and if you don’t have three green boxes carrying yes, yes and yes in them, you already know you can’t be offered admission to that course, this is when you need a slot—the only place left which slots can still work. Your slot person will just need to get a slot for you to another department which cutoff you beat; you see how easy it suddenly got to process admission? You are carried along in every process, instead of being left in the dark as it used to be years ago. Kudos to JAMB. But if you are an aspirant currently on slots, it’s advisable you talk to your slot person ASAP to know how the new development will be affecting you or has affected you, and re-strategize on the new thing to do. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING >>>> https://www.pecngr.com/2020/02/transfer-approval-and-admission.html

Admission Processing to OAU: What’s it going to Look like this Year?
If there are schools at all where you can pass the screenings and just go relax at home waiting for admission, OAU is certainly not one of those schools. This is not to say the admission processes are not credible enough or merit-based, but don’t be too trusting in any government institution that you don’t assume there are always human forces moving special files around so that they can get special attentions; these things happen everywhere and on everything—OAU’s admission processes not exempted. OAU is a very competitive school, it’s at least 100,000 of applicants per year trying to get in and only about 10,000 to 15,000 of them get admitted eventually. The rest are either screened out by exams or screened out by lack of information, misinformation or inactions if they passed all the exams and have the departmental cut-off. This year’s admission would not be any less competitive. The highly competitive departments like Medicine and Surgery, Nursing, Pharmacy, Law, Accounting, and Computer Science would not be any less competitive too. In fact, it would be said again that what determines who gets what is determined by merit, but we all know this system is not that merit-based; there would be candidates who have all the scores and documents and should merit the admission but they would not get admitted, meanwhile there would be candidates who would score 10 to 20 marks below the cut-off and still somehow get admitted, that’s the power of slots (if you know, you know). CONTINUE READING HERE>>>>https://www.pecngr.com/2023/05/admission-processing-to-oau-whats-it.html