JAMB Registrar Supports ASUU On IPPIS, Proliferation of Universities

The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has said the adoption of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, as the payment platform for university workers is unsuitable for the university system.

Oloyede, while delivering a lecture at the 71st birthday ceremony of a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Professor Peter Okebukola which held via Zoom, said the necessary pressure must be put on the Federal Government to discard the payment platform.

“I am not a fan of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, but they have a point here. IPPIS is unsuitable for the university system. Let me cite an instance, when I was the VC at the University of Ilorin, I went to Australia on an official assignment and there I met a Nigerian with PhD in an area of Botany where we lacked the manpower.

“I spoke with the man and convinced him of the need to work with us and he agreed. Immediately, I put a call to the Dean of the Faculty of Science and told him about the development and that was how we secured the services of the man. He is now a professor in one of the nation’s universities.

“Also, we must be careful of the number of universities we are having, especially the ones being set up by government agencies and the military. We already have the Nigerian Defence Academy which trains officers for all the arms of the military. We also have the Police Academy that trains police officers, it can also help in training para-military men too.

“In that regards, we don’t need more than one or two. If care is not taken, we will soon have university of road safety or university of civil defence. Adequately funding existing universities should be our focus,’ he said.

ASUU that is currently on a four week strike is also complaining about IPPIS and the indiscriminate establishment of universities by federal and state governments among other issues.

Oloyede who also spoke on the issue of cut off marks for candidates seeking admission into higher institutions, said he had been asked in a number of international fora whether anybody whose score falls into that category would be automatically admitted.

He  further explained that in some situations, candidates might score high marks in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Education, UTME, and fail to do well in post-UTME exams and screening and vice versa.

He therefore suggested that cut off marks could be replaced with minimum acceptable score.

On some of the changes needed in the education sector, oloyede called for the establishment of the Federal Ministry of Higher Education Research and Innovation to take care of research institutes now under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.