Stakeholders Roll Out Modalities For Absorption Of Sudan Returnees, Lists 14-Point Procedure For Absorption

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has rolled out modalities for the absorption of returnee students from war-torn countries into Nigerian universities.

According to a statement, JAMB Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Fabian Benjamin, revealed that the modalities are follow-ups to the high level meeting between the Federal Ministry of Education(FME), Federal Ministry of Health, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board(JAMB), Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), National Universities Commission(NUC) and other critical stakeholders on the integration of returnee Nigerian students from war-torn countries into the nation’s tertiary education system.

The Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, while presenting the modalities at a virtual meeting with Vice Chancellors of Nigerian universities and other critical stakeholders in Abuja, said it was imperative to hold talks with the Vice Chancellors following the peculiarities of each university and the variation in the responses received from them on the matter.

The Registrar pointed out that the emergency meeting was convened to fashion out uniform standards and minimum acceptable benchmarks for the proposed absorption in line with global best practices.

He also stated that the Senate of each university had the right to decide on university transfers and do not need to wait for JAMB to initiate such, adding that the parley with the stakeholders was to present the modalities for  critique as well as receive inputs.

Oloyede reminded the Vice Chancellors to key into the earlier Advisory sent to universities on the procedures for processing applications for foreign and domestic inter-university transfers, noting that the current Advisory on the returnees does not override the earlier one, but serves to reinforce it by strengthening the procedures for transfers.

Representatives of the Federal Ministry of Education, National University Commission NIDCOM and Vice Chancellors of Universities who aligned themselves with the position of JAMB, promised to support the initiative.

The latest Advisory on procedures for emergency transfers of returning students include amongst others, that each of them is mandated to do a retroactive registration with the FME, visit the returnee application page on IBASS as accessible from the JAMB website, where the returnee students would upload their registration slips,  complete the transfer of personal data, which include name, NIN, telephone number, active e-mail account, current university, country, city of study and programme, year and current level of study.