Government Threatens to Revoke Licences of Private Varsities Over Post-UTME

Private universities that flout the Federal Government's proscription of the controversial written post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (post-UTME), and covertly conduct the exercise, risk sanctions. They could have their operational licences revoked by the Federal Government. Government also said it would sanction any of its institutions that conduct written post-UTME, and sack their vice chancellors of such schools.Deputy Director, Press at the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Bem Goong, said the warning has become necessary as some institutions were still bent on going ahead with the written test, which the government has since abolished. In an interview with The Guardian, Goong alleged that Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) was stopped from carrying out a post-JAMB examination over the weekend in the Garki area of the Federal Capital Territory. According to the Goong, "One of the parents alerted me about what they were trying to do, and I in turn contacted the permanent secretary outright, who mandated me to convey the development to the National Universities Commission (NUC), and the executive secretary of the commission was duly briefed. "On learning of this development, we promptly reacted and the exercise was stopped at that centre. By the time we got there, they had actually gone in and had even started the examination. So, we had to stop them and also informed them that if they choose to go ahead, they would face serious sanctions from the NUC. We, however, do not know whether they went ahead in other centres around the country, where the exercise was meant to take place." The director of press warned institutions against operating at variance with Federal Government's directive, as that would not be tolerated.For federal universities, there are also sanctions, because the vice chancellors are public servants, and it could be worse for them because they would be seriously dealt with, and could even be sacked. So, it is very important that they comply with government's directives as it concerns scrapping of written post-UTME. Spokesperson of ABUAD, Tunde Olofintila, however, said the school did not organise post-UTME examination, which has been proscribed by the Federal Government."For the avoidance of doubt, ABUAD had a screening exercise for intending students at Government Secondary School, Garki, Abuja. That event took place smoothly and it was not a post-UTME, since the Federal Government had outlawed it. All we did was screening of the intending students and everything went on smoothly without any issue since there was police presence," Olofintila explained. The Federal Government in June put an end to written post-UTME. Even though key players in the sector kicked, claiming that it would compromise standards, government insisted that the days of written post-UTME were over for good.