NUT Lagos Opposes FG’s JAMB Waiver for Colleges of Education Applicants

The Leadership of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Lagos State Wing at its State Wing Executive Council (SWEC) meeting held on Monday 25th of May, 2026 has opposed the Federal Government decision to grant Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) waiver to student applicants into Colleges of Education.

In a press Statement jointly signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the union, Comrade Hassan Akintoye Mujeeb and
Comrade Ayetoba Gbenga, “The Federal Government had earlier announced at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) policy meeting, the removal of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for students seeking admission into Colleges of Education.

“The SWEC in Session aligned itself in totality with the position of NUT-NEC objecting to the policy, which is capable of down-playing the importance of teachers and teaching profession in the society”

The State Chairman, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Lagos State Wing, Comrade Hassan Akintoye Mujeeb expressed the dangers, saying, this obnoxious policy could portend, if the teaching profession is made free for all without restrictions which usually come down to unintended tradeoff in quality.

The NUT boss in his analysis affirmed that lowering academic threshold means that the candidate’s entry into our Colleges of Education would be filled with students who have no business with teaching and who would eventually be struggling with their subject content. The weak content knowledge adding to weak pedagogy is equal to graduates who would not be able to teach effectively.

“Moreover, the NUT boss sees this policy as a calculated attempt to devalue teaching profession. When admission becomes “too easy”, the profession loses signaling value. High achieving students start to see teaching as a last resort and not a carrier choice. Better candidates avoid education faculties for other disciplines like law, medicine, engineering etc. The end result would be that those that would be found in our classrooms are those that couldn’t get into other fields.

“Bad teachers don’t just affects one class, it affects the whole society at large. “No country can develop above the quality of its education”. If the policy is allowed to stand, the adverse effect would be too grievous for the society, fixing the error later would cost far more than maintaining a higher entry standard now”.

Comrade Hassan Akintoye used the medium to call for “Education Summit” which would bring all critical education stakeholders across education sector together for proper brainstorming in order to address the identified gaps leading to low enrolment in our colleges.

As part of the panacea to our current situation, Mr. Chairman recalled the bill Harmonising the Extension of Retirement Age for Teachers from 60-65 and service years from 35-40 which was accented into law by the late president Muhammed Buhari (GCON) in the Year 2020.

“Among other incentives as stated in the Bill are increase in the funding of Public Education, Special Salary Scale for Teachers (TSS), financial inducement for all students studying education in our colleges and universities e.t.c to further make teaching profession more attractive and lucrative for the best candidates. It is disheartening to note that all of these are yet to be implemented”.

The NUT Chairman, concluded by urging the Federal Government under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCON) to come to our aid and save Nigerian education system from total collapsing by rescinding the decision to trade short term access for long term damage to teacher’s quality in Nigeria.

“Teaching is a noble profession and must be treated with dignity”, the statement concluded.