Date: 2021-06-27

The University of Ilorin (Unilorin) says the institution is known as an equal opportunity espouser in all areas of its activities, including admission exercise.

A statement signed by Mr Kunle Akogun, the Director, Corporate Affairs of the university, said the attention of management had been drawn to a post in some social media platforms querying a perceived denial of admission to one of the 2020/2021 UTME candidates, Miss Ayuba Nusebah.

He stated that the post tried to whip up unnecessary sentiments through emotion-laden but uninformed write-ups.

"Our admission policy protects rights of all candidates who apply to the institution through the principle of equity, fair play and justice.

"In essence, qualified candidates don't have to know anybody, either in our university or in higher quarters to be given fair and just consideration. "The candidate under reference, Ayuba Nusebah Folashade, with Registration No: 212 77550JA, who is an indigene of Kogi, scored 268 in the UTME.

"She has the following polled O Level Score: Maths = B3, English = C4, Chemistry = B3, Physics = C4, Biology = C5," he said.

Akogun stated that her Aggregate Score, which was derived from the computation of her UTME score (50 per cent) and five best relevant O' Level grades (50 per cent ), is 60.17.

"In our admission consideration, the following criteria come into play: National Merit, Catchment Area and Educationally Less Developed States.

"In other words, for any candidate to be admitted, he/she must meet at least one of these three criteria," he said.

The Unilorin spokesman added that for Ayuba's preferred course of study, Doctor of Optometry, the Merit Cut-off Point is 68.38; Catchment Areas' Cut-off Point is 64.17, while Educationally Less Developed states' Cut-off Point is 63.5.

"So, with an aggregate score of 60.17, it is clear that this candidate did not meet any of the set criteria.

"Apart from her failure to meet the objective cut-off point, Ayuba ranked 99th on the table of 394 qualified UTME candidates that picked Optometry as their preferred course of study.

"At the end of the exercise, 63 candidates were eventually offered admission. This means that there are 35 other Optometry candidates who performed better than Ms Ayuba that didn't scale through," he said.

Akogun explained that the management had taken the pains to go into this detail in order to clear all misgivings about its admission process and to demonstrate the transparency, sincerity and inherent openness in the process.

"It should be pointed out that processes on the JAMB Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) contain checks and balances that will not allow any candidate to be skipped if he/she is qualified for admission into a programme going by the set criteria," he stated. (NAN)