The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, recorded a 4.01 per cent drop in applications received in 2018.

The NBS, in its JAMB Applications and Admitted Candidates by State and Gender within Faculty Data (2017-2018) posted on its website, stated that applications received in 2018 were over 1.65 million as against the over 1.72 million received in 2017.

The report further showed that 902,176 applications received in 2018 were from males while 750,951 applications received were from female applicants while 952,436 applications received in 2017 were from males and 769,833 applications received were from female applicants.

This, it said, represents about 4.01 per cent drop in comparison to the total applications received in 2017.

Similarly, candidates admitted in 2018 were 549,763 as against the 566,719 admitted candidates in 2017 while the fall in total admitted candidates in 2018 was about 2.99 per cent, compared to the total admitted candidates in 2017.

In 2018, the bureau also revealed that 302,183 male candidates were admitted as against 315,678 male candidates admitted in 2017 while 247,580 female candidates were admitted in 2018 as against 251,041 female candidates admitted in 2017.

According to the NBS, data in the report is supplied administratively by Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and verified and validated by the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria (NBS).

The data is restricted to test based admissions and doesn’t cover admissions not determined by official tests and examinations conducted by JAMB.