The Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka on Monday announced that only 3,500 students out of over 60,000 candidates that picked the university in the last UTME will be admitted.

He said that out of this figure, 20,949 sat for the recently conducted Post UTME.
Olayinka, however maintained that 9,266 applicants out of the 20,949 candidates who sat for its Post UTME scored 50 percent and above.

The Vice Chancellor made these declarations while speaking at a media chat held at the university’s community radio, Diamond FM, Ibadan.

He said that, though the university was given opportunity to admit about 7,000, but it would only admit few undergraduates due to its resolve to expand admission spaces for post-graduate students.

Olayinka, while declaring that the university has not fixed its cut off marks, maintained that the 200 benchmark set as criteria for students to attend the Post UTME was done in order to set standard.
He said “I don’t even know what the cut off mark will be, the committee will meet and decide. Our motive is to improve the quality.

“About 60,000 candidates picked UI, 20,949 sat for the Post UTME, 9,266 scored 50 and above (which represents about 44.2 percent) in the examination.
“In this figure, we have more female than male this year, that means male need to be empowered. The highest score was 86 percent.

“We have to consider merit which is 45 percent, locality which is 30 percent, all the states of the federation is catchment area of UI, then ELDS.
“UI, UNILAG, Benin, Ife and UNN is using 200. I think we should set a standard, in UK, students don’t repeat class, they know that all of them are not university materials. Some will go to university while some will go to vocational schools.
“The summary of it is that we have about 153 universities, 42 federal and 42 states because some states now have 2 state universities especially Ondo and Ogun states. So Federal universities are over subscribed while the private universities are under subscribed,” he added.
“What will make us double our efforts, so we will need more staff and if you proliferate it, then the standard will be low.

Olayinka however noted that despite the fact that many undergraduates in Nigeria are regarded as half baked, University of Ibadan graduates are still the best.
He said the university in its efforts at making sure parents monitor the academic performance of their wards, the university is making efforts at putting the results of all students on its website so as to ensure that they monitor their wards.

He said “We have to put on the website the results of the students to be viewed by their parents. Oyo has the largest number of students in UI, followed by Osun and is logical.

“UI is the most competitive, we can only admit at most 3,500. I must also said that we are allowed to admit about 7,000. We have about 7,300 bed spaces. Another reason why we are admitting less undergraduates is because we want to expand post-graduates
“We have about 27,000 students, the rate is 16.5 whereas in Harvard it is about 5.1.

Olayinka then used the medium to congratulate the radio station on its 9th anniversary.