No fewer than 10,378 candidates, who wrote the Direct Entry examination organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board in 2023, currently have their admission suspended following the failure of their A-level issuing institution to submit a verification report to JAMB.

In February 2023, JAMB issued an advisory to guide candidates seeking to gain admissions through Direct Entry in the 2023/2024 academic session.

According to JAMB, the advisory was basically to address the issue of candidates using unacceptable or forged A-level certificates/ qualifications to gain admission.

Recently, JAMB advised the candidates to contact their former institutions as soon as possible to have their certificates verified, stressing that it would not accept students with unverified certificates.

JAMB also stated that it had written to all tertiary institutions that issued certificates and that a substantial number of them had answered positively, but others had not.

JAMB had decided to suspend the admission of 10,378 candidates following the failure of over 240 institutions, comprising majorly of polytechnics and colleges of education, to send verification reports of A-level results of the admission seekers.

A report by JAMB,  which our correspondent obtained in Abuja, said, “The verification exercises conducted by the Nigeria Post-secondary Education Data System have compelled the board to introduce further steps to address the series of sharp practices and inconsistencies in the ongoing 2023 DE admission exercise.”

JAMB noted that as part of efforts to arrest these series of unwholesome practices, “The NIPEDS has written to all tertiary institutions in the country to facilitate the verification of the A-level certificates of their respective students. While a significant number of these institutions have responded and had their students’ A-level certificates verified and the admissions of their students consequently processed, NIPEDS has yet to receive any response from many institutions.

“In effect, all such candidates holding the certificates of these institutions would not be considered for admission until they are verified.”

Analysis of the list of affected institutions by our correspondent puts some of the institutions with the highest number of unverified A-level results by candidates as follows, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1,314; Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, 611; Aminu Saleh College of Education 269; College of Education, Minna, 248; Federal College of Education, Okene, 164; Federal College of Education, Kotangora 164; Federal College of Education, Abeokuta, 383 candidates among others.