There are fears that the teaching profession in Nigeria may continue to experience the shortage of qualified teachers for existing vacancies and hope to train more teachers as the current data on the number of candidates that applied for each field of study and the available slots in the nation’s tertiary education does not favour teacher training courses.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and tertiary education stakeholders during the recent 2023 annual policy meeting on admissions into tertiary institutions gave a breakdown of the number of candidates that applied for each field of study and the available slots in the various universities.
During the policy meeting chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Andrew Adejoh, the breakdown released by JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, gave warning signs that the teaching profession may continue to struggle to retain its workforce and attract new talents due to low enrolment by candidates into Colleges of Education and education related courses.
Despite the benchmarks of 140 for universities and 100 cut-off marks for polytechnics and colleges of education, a 2018 data released by JAMB showed that of the 364,722 carrying capacity of federal, state and private Colleges of Education only 74,625 spaces were occupied by candidates leaving a whooping 290,079 unutilised.
The current data released at the policy meeting confirmed the worries expressed by Provosts of Colleges of Education over dwindling enrolment figures.
According to JAMB, the breakdown of the number of candidates that applied for each field of study and the available slots in the various universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education showed that out of the over 1.6 million candidates that wrote the examination, for education-related courses, only 52,702 candidates applied despite a vacancy of 111,176 in 152 Colleges.
However, the statistics showed too many candidates applied for minimal spaces that are available in the university system.
For example, 452,443 candidates applied for medicine, whereas there are only 78,578 MBBS admission slots. For Social Science courses, a total of 239,018 candidates applied whereas there are only 97,744 vacancies. For Science-related courses, a total of 227,453 candidates applied whereas there are 141,397 available slots. For engineering courses, a total of 163,123 candidates applied whereas there are 68,896 available slots. For admin-related courses, a total of 117,792 candidates applied, whereas there are only 38,725 vacancies.
Also, for arts and humanities, JAMB revealed that a total of 85,264 candidates will battle for 52,221 slots. For agriculture-related courses, only 20,133 candidates applied despite a vacancy of 30,536.