Health Technology Lafia Graduates Face Direct Entry Rejection 

In this report, CHINEDU AROH examines the frustration of some students of Health Technology, Lafia, whose diploma certificates are rejected for direct entry admissions due to the school’s negligence.  

“I have not been sleeping,” laments Mr Henry Momoh following the rejection of his daughter, Cynthia, to gain admission into any higher institution for a higher national diploma or bachelor’s degree programme.

His daughter, it was gathered, graduated from Community Health Department of Health Technology, Lafia, with a distinction. She had gotten the celebrated admission in 2020, and passed out in 2023. But all her efforts to secure direct entry admission had proved futile. Momoh, from Edo State, said his daughter’s admission into the health technology in 2020 was celebrated, but regretted that the admission had turned out to be a fraud.

In his words, “My daughter did a diploma in that health technology. She was admitted without writing a matriculation examination of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board. We were assured that the institution had an approval of JAMB to run the programme. She actually wrote a university entrance examination, but was admitted before the result was released. Health Technology, Lafia, convinced us that all was well. At inception, we were made to pay some fees to enhance her JAMB regularisation. After the payment, I concentrated on training her through the programme.”

Momoh said his eyes became open when his daughter graduated with a distinction. In his words, “Behold we later realised that the health technology has no approval of JAMB because JAMB rejected her diploma certificate for direct entry admission. This is traumatic. My daughter now is set to start writing UTME afresh after wasting about three years in Lafia with the money involved. This is unfair. It is more painful when I remember that my daughter’s score in JAMB, shortly after she had gained admission into the Health Technology, Lafia, would have given her admission at her choice University of Nigeria, where she had applied to study nursing.”

On the value of money he spent training his daughter at the institution, Momoh said, “It runs in millions of naira. During the entrance, a certain form was issued to us, claiming that it was meant for regularisation with JAMB. We paid in the neighbourhood of N400, 000 then. Subsequently, we were made to pay over N200, 000 per session, in addition to other charges.”

According to him, the deception had brought depression to the entirety of his family. “My daughter is an above average person. She would have been graduating at UNN by now. Her immediate younger one is already studying at a university. My third child is about going to a higher institution. Now the eldest of them is seeking to start her academic career afresh. It is a monumental loss, frustration, deception and fraud to me. I appeal to concerned authorities to investigate this matter and bring those behind this fraud to book.”

Our correspondent reports that Momoh’s daughter graduated in 2023 with a diploma in Community Health. She was also given a certificate of induction into the Community Health Profession.

The certificate reads, “This is to certify that [you have] been inducted into the Community Health Profession having completed Community Health Programme and passed the Community Health Practitioners Registration Board of Nigeria Professional Examination for Diploma (CHEW) in September 2023.” It was signed by the registrar/CEO whose name was not given. Also, the certificate has no date.

I’m in Dilemma – Another Parent

Mr Patrick Okpe has his daughter schooling at Health Technology, Lafia. He told our correspondent that, “I was influenced to send my daughter there. I am at loss on the next step to take. I understand some courses have accreditation, but I wonder how the school could be advertising entrance into some courses that do not have accreditation with JAMB. It is fraud.”

Insider’s revelations

A lecturer at the institution, when contacted, said, “I don’t want to be mentioned, but truly, when I was given a job here, I didn’t know the health technology was having issues with accreditation of some of its courses. I was told JAMB demanded some payment which the school is yet to pay. But it is not among all the courses. Some of them, especially recent admissions, are being conducted in accordance with the policies of JAMB.

“The institution is legitimate. Our admission is based on the quota stipulated by the regulatory councils. We run courses, such as dental therapy, HND; health information management, medical X-ray technology, public health technology (ND), and epidemiology. Our graduates undergo youth service. At the moment we have two departments for that. They are dental therapy and environmental health. ND cannot go for NYSC. We do community health at diploma level for now. Health Technology, Lafia, is a private health institution.”

We Apologise – Registrar

Mr Musty Abubakar is the Registrar of the health technology. He said the institution is “legit”, adding that the difficulties the likes of Momoh’s daughter are passing through followed an admission policy of JAMB which was contrary to what the process had been.

He said, “It was a policy that was implemented by JAMB about two years ago, which transferred all admission processes to itself. Since the inception of our institution, our accreditation was not done by the National Board for Technical Education, but by the regulatory council of the professional body.

“The student you talked about studied community health. Accreditation was until now given by the Community Health Practitioners Registration Board of Nigeria, and not NBTE. This new policy has caused a lot of issues. We are not the only institutions as almost all private schools are affected. The only private schools that are found in the JAMB portal are the ones that have got NBTE accreditation for other technical courses that are not health-related.

 For most of us that do not offer those technical courses, our institutions are not in the JAMB portal. So, it might have made direct entry and regularisation difficult for us. If not, before two years ago, our students have been gaining direct entry admissions. I have a staff, one of our ex-students who graduated from our school; he gained direct entry to a university and graduated. He is now working as a professional radiographer. We have been on our toes since almost two years. We have written to JAMB and NBTE over this matter. The last time we spoke to them, about March this year, we were told that the board was attending to the matter zone by zone, and that they are yet to get to the North-Central zone.

“It is quite unfortunate but it not our fault. Two months ago, this same Community Health Council wrote us that during their subsequent accreditation visits, they would come along with NBTE. Before now, we didn’t need NBTE for our accreditation. We didn’t need JAMB for admission because the council told us the criteria for admission, which is O’level with five credits in relevant subjects.

“The regulatory body comes for the professional exams and students are given licences to practise. And they get jobs with it. This shows that the school is legit. It is just the new policy that has made things difficult for us. We apologise for the inconveniences while we go through the processes gradually. We are working towards getting our courses added to the JAMB portal by next admission. I won’t make promises because it is beyond my jurisdiction.”

JAMB’s Position

JAMB had on February 28, 2024 (JAMB) released an advisory to assist candidates aiming to secure admissions through direct entry for the 2023/2024 academic session. THE WHISTLER reports that JAMB’s advisory was to tackle candidates gaining admission using unacceptable or forged A-level certificates/qualifications.

The admission regulatory body had therefore advised the candidates to contact their former institutions to have their certificates verified before they would be considered for admission. JAMB further announced that it had written to all tertiary institutions that issued certificates, adding that while many answered positively, but others had not.

A memo from JAMB, seen by our reporter, states that, “The Board has implemented measures to combat the use of unacceptable or forged A’ level certificates/qualifications by candidates seeking admission. One of these measures is the verification of claimed qualifications with the relevant awarding bodies/institutions.

“Institutions awarding A’ Level qualifications, degrees, and diplomas had been requested, through the central admissions processing system, to verify the authenticity of the qualifications and results presented by candidates to the board for admission.

“Despite the letters and follow-ups made by the board to institutions to verify the claimed certificates, 2,795 are yet to be verified from 155 institutions, as some have partially or totally not responded. In effect, all such candidates holding the certificates of these institutions would not be considered for admission until they are verified.”

JAMB also launched a regularization process to tackle certificate racketeering in admission processes. It is a process of ensuring that JAMB validates candidates’ current admission details with the school that offered admission to such candidates in their database with the aim of either granting one gateway of securing admission or granting admission letter/registration number.

A forwarded message from a JAMB source, who refused to be mentioned, stated that, “The JAMB regularization procedure is designed to regulate ND/NID/OND, HND, and NCE type of admission to the university and clear up the JAMB status of a prospective student. The purpose of the JAMB regularization is to ensure that JAMB has students’ current admission details that tally with the admission/registration record in the school that offered the admission.”

Also included for JAMB regularization, it was learnt, are students who do not have admission letters from JAMB but were offered admission in tertiary institutions; students who did remedial/pre-degree programmes like basic programmes or certificate programmes or direct applications to the school, as well as students who did not register JAMB during the years they were offered admissions.