The Federal Government has warned specialised universities in the country, which have been running programmes that are not in conformity with their mandates, to stop such with immediate effect.
In a statement on Sunday, the government therefore directed that such universities should stick to their core mandates for which they were set up “and desist from running programmes which have no bearing to their names and foundation.”
It described as unfortunate a situation where universities of agriculture offered programmes in Law and management courses such as Accounting, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, among others. The statement by the spokesman for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, stated that the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, had directed JAMB “to delete all such courses on its portal.” All candidates desirous of sitting the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the statement advised, “should not be hoodwinked into such programmes as they are illegal and are not provided for in JAMB brochure.” The statement described specialised universities as those set up to pursue specific courses and programmes to generate manpower in particular sectors of the economy.
He said, “Some of these specialised institutions include universities of agriculture, universities of technologies and universities of medicine, amongst others. “The Federal Government has observed that these institutions have derailed from their statutory responsibilities, thereby running programmes that are antithetical to their mandates. “The government notes the unfortunate situation where Universities of Agriculture offer programmes in Law, management courses such as Accounting, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, among others. “As if that was not enough, some institutions change the nomenclature of some of the courses to read, for instance, banking engineering, accounting technology, among other names. This is an aberration and should be stopped with immediate effect.”
According to him, JAMB has not commenced the sales of the 2017 UTME application documents.
Punch