Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, says the state maintains its record as the highest in Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, applications due to his free education programme.
Okorocha spoke in reaction to figures released by Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, which showed that Imo State again topped applications for the 2017 JAMB Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
A statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemeodo, said: “the Rescue Mission Government in the state with Governor Rochas Okorocha on the driver’s seat, has acknowledged the report credited to the Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede that Imo State has again topped the JAMB applications this year (2017) with 101,868 applications out of the total of 1.7million applications.
“Prof. Oloyede had said at a press briefing in Abuja, Tuesday that Osun State came second with 88,653 applications, while Oyo State came third with 87,811 applications.
“This beautiful development would make it the sixth time since 2012 that Imo would come first in JAMB applications.
“The enviable records did not come by happenstance. They are all products of the free education programme in the state which occasioned the astronomical increase of the school enrolment in the state from 280,000 in 2011 to more than 800,000 at the moment.”