JAMB reveals Nigeria's most popular universities

- Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said it does not use students’ checklist in determining applicants’ preferred schools

- Economic Confidential a magazine says Unilorin had the highest student applicants

- Fabian Benjamin, JAMB spokesperson, said the students’ checklist as outlined in the report was not determined by JAMB

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in reaction to reports going round has stated that it does not use students’ checklist in determining applicants’ preferred schools.

According to Economic Confidential a magazine, Unilorin had the highest student applicants of 103,238 (males – 51, 082 and females – 52, 156).

The report said that academic stability, popularity, affordability, available facilities and quality of lecturers were factors students considered before choosing their preferred institutions.

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Fabian Benjamin, JAMB spokesperson, speaking to Premium Times on Tuesday, October 4, said the students’ checklist as outlined in the report was not determined by JAMB.

Benjamin said: “JAMB has no way of determining these factors from information available to us through the frequency of schools chosen by Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates.”

“What we do each year, is to roll out data on the institutions with the highest number of applicants. For some years now, the University of Ilorin has been topping that chart, this does not mean that the school is the best in the country. It just shows students’ preferences.”

Unilorin goes on Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike actions, a problem that plagues many federal universities in the country.

Also, Unilorin was said to have one of the fastest academic calendars of all institutions in the country.

However, in the 2016/2017 global ranking carried out by Times Higher Education (THE), University of Ibadan was the only Nigerian university that made the list at 801.

Teaching, research citations of scholarly publications, industry income and international outlook were the factors for determining the ranking. Yet, for 2016, Unilorin surpassed the University of Ibadan in preferred student choices.

As for the determinants earlier mentioned by Economic Confidential, Benjamin said JAMB was not in a position to know why students choose their institutions.

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University of Ilorin, University of Benin, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Bayero University, Kano were the most popular federal university choices for 2016 by magazine.

Nasarawa State University, Imo State University, Kaduna State University, Delta State University and Adekunle Ajasin University were also the most popular state university choices for 2016.

While the most popular private university choices for 2016 are Covenant University, Afe Babalola University, Babcock University, Igbinedion University and Bowen University.

Source: Legit.ng