VC advocates scraping of uniform admission cut-off marks

Benin – Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, the Vice
Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Okada in
Edo, has advocated the scraping of uniform
university admission cut-off marks to promote
competitiveness among the country’s
universities.
Osaghae spoke on Wednesday in Benin, in an
interview with the News Agency of Nigeria
(NAN).
He said each university should be allowed to
have its own admission cut-off marks because
all universities were not equal.
“The standards that the universities have are not
the same. If you want to push all the universities
to have the same standard, then you are
negating the whole essence of competitiveness.
“Why do universities thrive to be excellent?
“It is so that they can be on the top, and the
considerations for universities at the top should
not be the same for those that are below”, he
said.
Osaghae suggested that the Joint Admission and
Matriculation Board (JAMB), should be saddled
with the responsibility of administering entrance
examinations, while universities should be
allowed to select their candidates.
“We have a matriculating board, JAMB. Let it
administer the exams while tertiary institutions
chose what they want.
“If you look at the world of ideas and the world
of learning there is no equality there.
“If you select 10 unequal universities in the
world and ask people to make a choice, you will
find out that most people would want to go to
the top universities.
“It is these top universities that have most of the
stringent requirement; that is the practice all
over the world.
“If you want to go into Oxford or Cambridge, you
must have very good grades. That is what is
practised all over the world.
“You cannot equalise all tertiary institutions and
fix the same admission cut-off marks for them
all”, he explained.