The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has pledged technical assistance to Sierra Leone as the West African country moves to establish a centralized admissions system for its universities and technical institutions, offering Nigeria’s four decades of experience running one of Africa’s most established unified admissions frameworks as a resource for the reform.
JAMB Registrar Professor Is-haq Oloyede, speaking at a high-level stakeholder engagement organized by Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Technical and Higher Education at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Freetown, said Nigeria had established its centralized system in 1978 to tackle challenges similar to those Sierra Leone was now confronting. He emphasized that the goal was not to replicate the Nigerian model but to help Sierra Leone develop a system tailored to its own educational needs and context.
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Technical and Higher Education Dr. Haja Ramatulai Wurie said the proposed Centralized Admissions System had already received Cabinet approval and was backed by the Universities Act of 2021. She said the reform would address weaknesses in the current decentralized process and improve coordination across institutions, and was being implemented in collaboration with the Tertiary Education Commission, the West African Examinations Council, the National Civil Registration Authority, the National Telecommunications Authority, and other agencies.
Deputy Minister Sarjoh Aziz-Kamara, who had led an earlier delegation to Nigeria to observe JAMB’s operations during its Annual Policy Meeting, described the reform as a significant step toward ensuring fairness, accountability, and efficiency in admissions. He said Cabinet had approved the establishment of a Centralized Admissions Secretariat within the ministry to oversee the new digital platform.
JAMB presented a framework at the event for building a national digital admissions architecture designed to enhance transparency, improve data integrity, eliminate duplication, and strengthen educational planning.
