Government tightens security on Nigeria students seeking admission in Kenya
3 min read
Government tightens scrutiny on Nigerian students seeking admission into Kenyan universities
Government tightens scrutiny on Nigerian students seeking admission into Kenyan universities.
Kenyan agencies responsible for admitting foreign students into tertiary institutions have written to the Nigerian Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) seeking to verify the qualifications of Nigerian applicants vying for admission to various universities within the country.
Various Nigerian media outlets report that JAMB, the Nigerian agency, in a report titled Registrar’s Report on 2023 ADMISSION & 2024 UTME Policy Meeting exposed widespread instances of certificate falsification which prompted a crackdown.
In its report, the agency reported that Kenyan and Ugandan examination boards have officially written to JAMB to confirm records presented by candidates for admission.
“JAMB will not falsify records,” the agency reiterated adding that it would go to any lengths necessary to protect the Nigerian education system from international disrepute.
This comes after the Nigerian government temporarily suspended the verification of degree certificates from Kenya, Uganda, Benin, Togo and some other countries over allegations of certificate racketeering.
According to the report, the Nigerian government was prompted to act on the information following an instance where a Nigerian investigative journalist revealed how he obtained a degree from an institution in Benin within six weeks.
This prompted the Federal Government to set up an inter-ministerial investigative committee on degree certificate milling to probe the activities of certificate racketeers from Kenya and other African countries whose citizens are alleged to have been involved in the practice.
Recently, Nigeria threatened to blacklist students from Kenya and Uganda among other African countries from pursuing learning opportunities in the country.
The push and pull move could paralyze learning for thousands of students from Nigeria and Kenya seeking learning opportunities between the countries.
This comes at a time when locally, there have been instances and claims of how some public servants and politicians got their way to employment by presenting fake certificates.
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This got the attention of the Public Service Commission (PSC) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) who recently directed state and private employers to conduct audits on employees’ academic qualifications from the past decade to ensure accountability.
In April this year, President William Ruto while promising to deal with the menace revealed that there were some 2,100 individuals serving the government who falsified certificates in order to secure employment within the government.
“We must deal firmly with corruption. There is a lot of wastage and theft in the public space. We can put more resources into development and I think we have now stabilized what we needed to stabilize. We will now confront corruption, head on, going forward,” Ruto said.
Speaking during the National Wage Bill Conference in Nairobi, Ruto asked the individuals in question to step aside from their positions.
“Those who have earned money using fake certificates should refund us our public money. Isn’t it the equivalent of obtaining money by false pretense? They should leave, resign and go away and look for money to pay us the public resources that they have earned falsely,” said Ruto.
The Nigerian examinations board is yet to officially respond to the letter written by the Kenyan authority.
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