The National Universities Commission and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board have warned that with the current carrying capacity of all universities in the country, less than 20 per cent of the 1,054,053 people who wrote the Universities Matriculation Examinations on Saturday would gain admission into the institutions.

They lamented that while there was an influx of candidates for the UME, the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education were currently undersubscribed.

The Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Julius Okojie, and the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. 'Dibu Ojerinde, stated these at the presentation of licence to the Ondo State University of Science and Technology in Abuja on Tuesday.

Okojie said, "Every year, there is always the problem of access to education in this country. This year alone, over one million candidates are taking the UME, but unfortunately, we have placements for only 200,000.

"Meanwhile, places in the Colleges of Education and Polytechnics are usually undersubscribed because everybody wants to go to the universities. "

Warning that Nigeria was in dire need of more universities, he warned that the quality of education should not be sacrificed on the altar of quantity.

Ojerinde, who commented on the conduct of the UME on Saturday said, "We can only take just 200,000 because of the capacities of the universities.

" Every year, the number of candidates taking the UME keeps on increasing, but the spaces are limited. I can bet that the number will keep on increasing.

"If care is not taken, in the next five years, we will have over four million candidates writing the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations and the UME."

Meanwhile, the Rivers State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has directed the authorities of state University of Science and Technology, Nkpolu in Port Harcourt, to limit admission to available facilities.

Amaechi, who spoke when an accreditation team from the National Universities Commission visited him, said learning would be impaired if facilities were not enough to accommodate students.

According to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria, the governor called on the authorities to resist giving admission based on pressures from government officials and other highly-placed individuals.

He said, '' I am made to understand that pressures come your way. I beg you to resist such pressures and narrow your admission down to the capacity of existing facilities.

'' Let it be on merit, over-admission will stretch the facilities and make the lecturer/student ratio unbearable, and this ultimately affects the quality of graduates.''

Amaechi said he had given N2.5bn to the institution since he came into office in October 2007.

He expressed worry that some courses in the university lost accreditation due to inadequate facilities.

The governor said he had directed the institution to engage more lecturers and promised to sponsor those willing to obtain doctorate degrees.

Earlier, the leader of the NUC team, Prof. Wilson Herbert, said they were at the Government House to acquaint the governor with their mission.

According to him the NUC carries out periodic accreditation of courses in Nigerian universities to ensure standards.

Herbert appealed to the state government to pay attention to manpower development to improve the quality of graduates of the university and meet the challenges of the times.

The Government caused the system to be like this. If Nigerian Polytechnic students were not so discriminated against, everybody will not want to rush to a Nigerian University.

We all know that graduating from a Nigerian polytechnic is like a stigma you carry all your life.

Government is behind the predicament, discrimination should be stopped. poly and uni are using almost dsame textbook,some polytechnic lecturers are part-time lecturer in the universities then y are they separated in the labour market.

Nigerians have wrong notions about the functions of our Universities and polytechnics.

Universities should be primarily for research while the polytechnics are for those who do the hands down work.

The discrimination has to stop else they will have 2 million students writing JAMB next year.

This JAMB thing again, it seems like a very big problem in over there.

people that controlled our society were building foundation which cannot withstand future problem. during the regime of Ex- president{baba iyabo} He contributed negatively to Educational sector, in respect of POLY and UNIVERSITY discrimanation, he employed zero solution to it by putting UNIVERSITY as ULTIMATE while POLYTECHNIC as PEN-ULTIMATE forgeting that some are for Research and some are workforce in there specific area.

so where do they expect the teeming,anticipating once to dive to.i no fit shout

Oh, like anybody cares if 15 million candidates sat for JAMB and only 2 people are likely to get admited. As long as the money keeps rolling...there's no advocate for the innocent. Horse shit is what I call this.

Wow, this is not funny
what will happen to the rest students?
why are they acting as if Education is not a necessity
all the students want to do is get more knowledge
why deprive them

the first solution to these problem is to stop the discrimination btw poly and varsities