New Telegraph

JAMB cancels UTME cut off marks

Prof. Is-haq Oloyede

Prof. Is-haq Oloyede

…varsities to set individual benchmarks
Prisoners, visually impaired, others now exempted from post-UTME

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has given tertiary institutions the freedom to set their individual minimum benchmarks for admission, as general cut off marks for all institutions have been cancelled. The decision was reached at the 2021 policy meeting held virtually and chaired by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, on Tuesday, however, every institution must maintain its own minimum score as approved by the policy meeting, and the 2021 admissions must be conducted only through JAMB’s Central Admissions Processing System, (CAPS).

Although October 31, 2021 was proposed as the deadline for the closure of amendments for 2021 admissions for public institutions, and January 31, 2022 for private institutions, the stakeholders agreed to allow the ministry to decide. But the 2021 admission guideline was adopted, with a provision that applications for all programmes whether part time or full time for degree, NCE, OND, and others, must be posted only through JAMB, while the maximum score approved for Direct Entry (DE) was six and the minimum of two or E, as required by law.

In addition, the stakeholders exempted prison inmates, visually impaired and foreign candidates from sitting for the post UTME exercise. Speaking at the meeting, Registrar of JAMB Prof. Is-haq Oloyede said all candidates’ credentials must be uploaded on CAPS and recommended by the institution. Oloyede, who noted that JAMB approves and the candidate accepts the offer of admission, added that if candidates have not accepted an offer, the institution could change the candidate after informing JAMB. He further disclosed that for 2021/2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the board was introducing two new subjects: computer studies and physical and health education, bringing to a total of 25 subjects.

According to him, out of the 956,809 admission spaces in the 962 higher education institutions in the country about 600,000 have so far been admitted, only 36,381 candidates out of the 120,938 spaces available to private universities could be admitted, even as many admission spaces have not been filled up in several courses due to lack of qualified candidates. Declaring the policy meeting open, Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, decried the illegal admissions still conducted by some tertiary institutions, despite the government’s directive that all admissions should be done through JAMB’s CAPS.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, he directed JAMB to furnish the government with the list of violators for necessary punishments as a deterrent to other institutions. On the mandatory use of the National Identification Number (NIN) as requirement for writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), he applauded the lowest record of examination irregularities at the last examination, adding that it was gratifying that other examination bodies were following the NIN path to curb examination malpractices.
“The ministry is presently considering other ways of using the NIN to uncover some other admission irregularities and all perpetrators including their collaborators in the institutions would be made to face the consequences.”

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