By Peter Onyekachukwu 
By Peter Onyekachukwu
The University of Calabar (UNICAL) has dismissed claims by students protesting over alleged unfair screening and over-admission into the Departments of Nursing and Medicine, saying most of them were not officially admitted.
Reacting to the protest by hundreds of second-year students, the institution’s Public Relations Officer, Dr. Effiong Eyo, said internal findings showed that some of the affected students gained admission “through side ways,” while others were not listed on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) portal.
“Some of them were originally offered admission into other programmes like Human Nutrition, not Medicine or Nursing,” Dr. Eyo said, adding that the discovery came after an internal audit that followed similar irregularities in the Dentistry department.
He said the Deputy Vice Chancellor had already met with the affected students, advising them to change their course of study as the departments involved had exceeded their approved admission quotas.
Earlier, the protesting students, mostly from the Nursing and Medicine departments, had accused the university management of unfair screening and extortion, claiming they were forced to change their programmes after paying all required fees and writing their examinations.
They alleged that while the Nursing and Medicine departments were each meant to admit only 150 students, the university admitted over 900 and 1,000 respectively, leading to a mass downsizing exercise.
A parent who joined the protest described the development as “frustrating and unjust,” urging the university to take responsibility for its errors rather than punishing students