Can Technology Hack Admission Deficit in Nigeria?

Every year, only one out of four secures admission into a tertiary institution in Nigeria. By one, I mean over 1.4 million young Nigerians.

Between 2011 and 2015, JAMB reported that 7,829,169 students applied for placement in tertiary institutions across the country. Of this number, only 2,057,967 were admitted between the same periods. By implication, only one in every four admission seekers secured admission between 2011 and 2015. A breakdown of these figures shows that there were 1,493,605 applicants in 2011; 1,493,933 in 2012; 1,735,809 in 2013; 1,632,123 in 2014; and 1,473,699 in 2015. The number of admitted applicants are 432,539; 410,157; 400,269; 399,959; and 415,043 for 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; and 2015 respectively. The figure below compares the application figures with the admission figures between 2011 and 2015. 

With over 70% of the annual applicants being denied admission into tertiary institutions in the country, a DATAPHYTE analyst conducted research to investigate the situation. The analyst mined and analyzed data on the available tertiary institutions, the admission distribution to different categories of a tertiary institution, the admission requirements, and the capacity of tertiary institutions in Nigeria.   

The study found that there are at least 381 tertiary institutions in Nigeria. 170 of these are universities, 122 are polytechnics, and 89 are colleges of education. Between 2011 and 2015, universities provided 86.45% of the admissions for successful applications. 7.94% of admissions were offered by polytechnics and 5.60% were offered by colleges of education within the same periods.

between 2011 and 2015, an annual average of 355,833; 32,702; and 28,822 admissions were offered by universities; polytechnics; and colleges of education respectively. From the admission statistics available from the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Nigerian tertiary institutions could only admit a maximum of 415,043 applicants as of 2015, at of when the statistics were last updated. 

For the period under review, JAMB stipulated that applicants with a score of at least 180 are eligible to seek admission into universities. Applicants who scored above 150 could seek admission into polytechnics and colleges of education. With this information, the study determined the number of applicants who were qualified for placement in tertiary institutions. A baseline score of 170 was used to determine merit for all the years under review except for 2013 where a baseline score of 160 was used. This is to give the study a fairly robust grasp of the merit for the three categories of tertiary institutions. This statistics is presented in the table below. 

*Applicants that scored below the merit are those that scored below 170, those who were absent, those whose results were incomplete, those whose results were withheld, as well as those whose results were under investigation as at the point when the results were released. 

** Number of applicants that scored below 160 

The table above reveals that while a range of 63.36% to 83.09% of the applicants merited admission in the period under review, only 23.06% to 28.96% were considered for admission. As much as 64.51% of qualified applicants were denied admission in 2013 alone. In total, only one in every three qualified applicants secured admission to either of the three categories of tertiary institutions between 2011 and 2015. Particularly, only one in every three secured admissions in 2011 and 2012; one in four secured in 2013; and two in five secured in 2014 and 2015. This data suggests that Nigerian tertiary institutions do not possess the requisite capacity to offer more applicants admission thus the significantly high percentage of excluded qualified applicants. 

Beyond the psychological implication of being denied admission despite meeting the requirement, applicants also pay significantly high amounts for the unavailable tertiary institution seats. For instance, JAMB form sold at ₦4,600 between 2011 and 2014 and ₦4,500 in 2015. At this rate, over ₦18 billion was paid by the 3,935,035 qualified applicants who were not offered admission between 2011 and 2015.  

For any citizen-oriented government, these figures should stimulate policy decisions and actions. Perhaps one of the solutions would bother on improving the capacity of available institutions to enrol more students. More seats can also be created in tertiary institutions using some newly emerging global education models. One of such models is the open education model.  

Open education is education without academic admission requirements and is typically offered online. The model broadens access to the learning and training traditionally offered informal education systems. Open education is not entirely new in Nigeria; in 2017, the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) had over four hundred thousand students in its seventy centres that were distributed across the country.  

In addition, Nigeria recently introduced the Open Schooling Programme (OSP) into its Universal Basic Education with support from the Commonwealth of Learning. Among other things, OSP promises to provide flexible education that allows learners to learn wherever they are and when they want, away from conventional schools and teachers. Ultimately, the programme aims at providing educational opportunities for children and youths whose learning needs are not being met by conventional schools through the use of technology. The programme is also designed to provide functional vocational education. 

A closely related model to the open education model is the distance learning model that is being used for learning by universities across the world. The distance learning model allows students to learn without having to be physically present at a school. For both models, technology is utilized to widen the reach of education. 

Distance learning courses are commonly taught online and many Nigerians take foreign online courses. This alone has resulted in revenue loss to the country as similar courses can be taken locally thereby boosting local education revenue. For instance, the cost of online degrees in the UK currently range between €670 and €29,850. If at least 1,000 Nigerians pay a minimum of €10,000 annually for online degrees courses in the UK, then at least €10,000,000 is lost to the UK every year. 

As an alternative to the conventional tertiary institutions in the country, the government, through the Federal Ministry of Education, can invest in establishing more open education centres in the country. Open universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education can be promoted as alternatives to available tertiary institutions. In this regard, technology can be adopted to make these learning centres as competitive as conventional tertiary institutions. Robust curriculum and evaluation methods can also be developed to ensure standards in open learning centres. 

Existing tertiary institutions can also develop distance learning centres to offset some of the admission deficit and extend the reach of education. Available human and technical resources in these institutions can be utilized to create highly competitive degree-awarding distance learning centres. For instance, if the 381 available tertiary institutions in Nigeria develop distance learning centres that can admit between 1,000 and 2,000 students, 381,000 and 762,000 additional admission opportunities would be created annually. 

While considering these open education models to offset the admission deficit, it is important to creatively design the curriculum to address the different social issues in the country. Particularly, the curriculum should be projected towards livelihood development and poverty eradication. It should improve employability amongst graduate and reduce the current employment deficit by developing the skillset and capacity of students. Also, vocational education can be promoted through these open education models to diversify workforce and employment in the country. 

A robust anti-discrimination policy to ensure that graduates from these technology-based institutions are as competitive as graduates from conventional tertiary institutions. Efforts would also be required to reshape public perception of these learning models. This will include promoting the advantages of these emerging global models. By adopting these technology-driven models, Nigeria will increase its revenue, improve the competence of its workforce, and reduce its burden of unemployment.