Around 367,499 applicants applied for the 43,717 spaces accessible in Medicine Departments in Nigerian Universities for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.
Information from JAMB reveals a large percentage of candidates picked Medicine as their first choice for course of study in university.
No less than 1.8 million candidates sat for the 2022 UTME/Direct Entry examination led by the admision body.
Statistics as of 2022 as of late delivered by the board shows that 367,499 candidates applied for medicine while just 43,717 slots only exist.
It was likewise disclosed that 231,907 applied for sociology courses regardless of that main 93,277 spaces available while 204,734 applied for science-related courses in spite of 132,796 openings.
Furthermore, JAMB additionally revealed that 81,653 applied for Law-related courses in spite of 8,529 opportunities; 103,891 students applied for Technology related courses despite 60,199 opening; 72,014 applied for courses under Arts and Humanities regardless of 48,744 opening.
Nonetheless, JAMB noticed that less number applied for Agriculture and Education-related courses regardless of the massive opening existing in the faculties.
For example, in spite of 111,601 opportunities existing for Education courses in every single Nigerian Universities, just 53,612 candidates applied.
The board additionally noticed that 21,568 applied for Agriculture notwithstanding the country’s Tertiary institutions having 31,217 opportunities.
Prof Ishaq Oloyede the Jamb registra raised the issue when he met with the Minister of Education, Adamu; and heads of organizations as a component of the board’s strategy meeting in Abuja last Thursday.
“Take an instance at Medicine for example, we had 367,499 for opportunity of 43,717 which implies we just have opening of 11.90 percent for those that applied.
“Same thing with Social Science, however when you come to Education, you have 53,000 candidates for position of over 100,000 which implies that regardless of whether you admit every one of the people who applied for Education regardless of whether they have the capabilities or not, we would actually still have vacant slots. That is the reason why if such candidates by some stroke of good luck have their O’level results, they will get admitted.
“The UTME is a is a factor of deficiency syntax of number. if we have an adequate number of opening, we will presumably not have UTME. Same thing with agribusiness, Agric is far more terrible than Education,” Oloyede allegedly said at the gathering.
Remarking on the turn of events, the Program Director, Reform Education Nigeria, Ayodamola Oluwatoyin, focused on the requirement for legitimate sensitisation of candidates at secondary school level.
Oluwatoyin said, “We live in a time when it doesn’t make any difference your course of study. What makes a difference are the expected abilities. There used to be when individuals used to feel that in the event that you are not a specialist or a medical caretaker, you will not find success. There’s something off about this, nowadays we have individuals wandering into tech occupations among others.
“One more variable is the inconsistent circulation of jobs across sectors. Nowadays, individuals accept that once you concentrate on Education, you will wind up as a teacher in one non-public school or on the other hand in the event that you concentrate on Agriculture, you will not find a proper job.
“The government itself needs to establish the grounds to guarantee that there is interest in each area. At the point when you put resources into Agriculture, Education and there are steady employments, you will see that candidates will proceed to apply and it will lessen this irregularity we are checking out.”
