Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) has disclosed why it restricted candidates from choosing two public universities during the 2017 online registration.

Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s Head of Media and Information, said on Saturday that the choice of public universities was restricted to one but candidates can choose as many colleges of education and polytechnics as they want.

The new measure by the board means that candidates may select a public university and a private university, but not two public universities.

The new update was revealed by JAMB via its official twitter handle @JambHQ on Friday.

It reads: “candidates can select NCE as their choice up to three times I.e 1st choice, 2nd choice and 3rd choice.

“But they are not allowed to select two public universities as choices. If candidates select a public university as their degree awarding choices, they are allowed to select a private university as another choice.”

Mr. Benjamin explained that the Board took the restrictions because candidates hardly get admissions into their second and third choice universities.

“Yes we restricted the choice to one but candidates can choose as many colleges or polytechnics", he said.

“We discovered it was of no use choosing a university as second choice when in actual sense they can’t even accommodate their first choices", the JAMB official said.

Candidates have however cried foul over this new information as they lamented that the board is indirectly enforcing the choice of private university on them.

The candidates also lamented due to the huge sum paid as school fees in private universities stating that they are not affordable by most Nigerian parents.

“The fees nko? Jamb go help the students pay the fees for the private universities? You can’t force somebody to attend private universities",  a Twitter user, Robinson said.

PT