Vanguard, THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2012 — 29
Senate charges TETfund on scholarship, loan for indigent — Page 34 students
Fund researches well and see Nigeria’s GDP improve — Page 36
Children’s Day: 10m children out of school nationwide
Student killed as hoodlums raid FUT Minna off-campus hostel — Page 31
Drop-out rate was higher in junior secondary school than in the primary school category. Of those children currently in primary school, less than one third will attend junior secondary school and even fewer will proceed to senior secondary. The report noted that the problem of OOSC in both primary and junior secondary schools was more severe in all states of the three geo-political zones in the north than in the south. The factors that kept the children out of schools were grouped into economic, sociocultural and supply side
barriers and bottlenecks. Government and political influence, especially in the capacity of government to implement education policies as well as politicisation of basic education, equally affected the magnitude of the problem. Proffering solutions to the scourge, government was tasked to scale up existing conditional cash transfer to alleviate poverty in families linked to their enrolling children in schools; revive the school feeding programme or institute commodity voucher
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2012 UTME: JAMB pegs cut-off point at 180 for varsities, 160 for others BY FAVOUR NNABUGWU
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*Some students at the Year 2012 Children's Day Career Talk organised by the Ministry of Education for schools on Monday, May 21, 2012. BY AMAKA ABAYOMI & LAJU ARENYEKA
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S Nigerian children celebrate 2012 Children’s Day on Sunday, it is sad to note that over 40 per cent of them will celebrate on the street; without access to basic education as economic and socio-cultural factors keep over 10.1 million of the 35.6 million children aged between six and 14, out of schools. According to a report on outof-school-children (OOSC) jointly anchored by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
(UNICEF), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), United Nations Institute of Statistics (UIS) and the Federal Ministry of Education for the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) which was presented in 2011, there is an increase in the number of OOSC. While 12,531,414 boys and 12,130,673 girls aged six to 11 ought to be in primary schools, 3,366,138 (26.9 per cent) and 3,932,679 (32.4 per cent) of the boys and girls respectively, are not in school. This meant that of 24,662,087 children, 7,298,817 were not receiving
formal education in the country three years ago. Also, 200,630 and 168,795 of the total boys and girls respectively, dropped out of school. The report noted further that as at that date, 2,834,903 out of 10,912,131 boys and girls aged 12 to 14 who ought to be in junior secondary school (JSS), were not. A total of 625,993 dropped out of school. A breakdown of these figures showed that 5,543,223 boys were supposed to be in junior schools but 1,308,779 were not while 324,576 dropped out. Of 5,368,908 girls, 1,526,124 were not in school while 301,417 had dropped out.
BUJA THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has fixed national cut-off marks for admission into the nation's tertiary institutions. For the 2012/13 academic session, the board pegged cut-off mark for admission into universities at 180, while 160 was fixed for polytechnics, colleges of technology, colleges of education and other diplomaawarding institutions. JAMB Registrar/CE, Professor Dibu Ojerinde announced the cut-off marks at the 3rd Combined Policy Committee Meeting on Admissions to Degree-awarding Institutions, National Diploma, ND; Nigeria Certificate in Education, NCE; and National Innovation Diploma, NID, in Abuja. Also at the event, Professor Ojerinde lampooned the tertiary institutions for not admitting students up to their approved carrying capacities as the board released 2012 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. Speaking further, Ojerinde urged the institutions to
adhere strictly to entry requirements, saying institutions should ensure compliance with approved admissions guidelines, bearing in mind such criteria as merit, catchment, educationally less developed states, quota, carrying capacity and national cut-off mark. The national cut-off mark for admissions into universities in Nigeria for 2012/2013 academic session is fixed at 180, while the Board set 160 as the National cut-off mark for admissions into polytechnics, colleges of education and other diploma-awarding institutions. Condemning majority of the tertiary institutions' inability to admit close to or up to their carrying capacities, Ojerinde alleged that majority of the federal, state and private universities, polytechnics and colleges massively disobey the government in their carrying capacity ranging from a university with a carrying capacity of 6,608 which only admitted 6, 026 students, to another university that had a carrying capacity of 6, 292 but admitted only 2, 991 students. Yet another had a carrying
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