The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said over 500,000 spaces were not taken in the 2018 admissions in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, representing about 40 percent of the total available admission slots.

The board disclosed this in its weekly bulletin which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, in Abuja.

NAN reports that the statistics by the board for its 2018 admissions in the country’s tertiary institutions showed a total of 1,126,025 quota for universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and innovation enterprise institutes (IEIs).

According to the bulletin, a total of 585,498 quota, out of the total sum, were utilised, while a total of 527,815 slots were not utilised in the 2018 admission process.

The board’s Head of Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin, in a telephone interview with NAN, explained that the release of the official statistics became necessary in order to ensure transparency.

He added that it was also meant to do away with misleading information about the entire previous processes.

Benjamin noted that the board hoped to utilise 80 to 90 percent of the available spaces for the 2019/2010 admission.

He said the over 300,000 candidates, who met admission requirements, had so far been offered placements into universities for the 2019/2020 academic session.

The JAMB spokesman explained that the board’s projection for this year’s admission was to ensure that candidates utilised more available spaces, unlike in 2018 where about 40 percent of spaces were not utilised.

NAN also reports that the board had earlier stated that it would adhere to its admission deadline.

According to JAMB, the first choice admission for public universities, which commenced on Aug. 21, will last till Nov. 16, while that of private universities, which commenced on Aug. 21, had Feb. 15, 2020 as deadline.

The board also said the second choice admissions for public universities would commence from Nov. 17 till Dec. 17.