JAMB Cancels UTME Cut-Off Marks
For the first time, the Joint admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has cancelled general cut off marks for admission into tertiary institutions in the country. Henceforth, schools will be allowed to choose whatever cut-off mark that they want. This announcement was made by Professor Is-shaq Oloyede (JAMB registrar) during the board’s stakeholders meeting which was held on August 31st, 2021.
Note that this policy is not only affecting the 2021/2022 academic year.
Professor Is-haq Oloyede also stated that institutions had already sent their cut-off marks to the board. The University of Lagos, Akoka has chosen 200 as its benchmark, Lagos state university, Ojo chose 190, while the Pan Atlantic University has chosen 210 as it’s cut off mark for admission in the 2021/2022 academic session.
The JAMB registrar also condemned institutions who admit students into part time or full time programmes without going through JAMB. In his words, “Institutions which are still involved in advertising or selling application forms for admission into the programmes listed should stop henceforth. Rather, institutions should advise candidates to apply to them through JAMB. Duplication of application form is not allowed”.
Institutions have been banned from giving candidates admission outside the JAMB Central Admission Processing System (JAMB CAPS). All admissions must be processed through JAMB and published by the school only when the candidate accepts the admission on JAMB CAPS. If a candidate does not accept the admission through CAPS, institutions can change the candidate after informing JAMB.
While presiding over the meeting, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu directed JAMB to provide the Federal Government with the list of institutions that admit candidates outside JAMB CAPS for due punishments.
Also present at the meeting was the permanent secretary to the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono. Mr Sonny commended the use of the National Identification number, NIN, in the registration process of JAMB as it helped to curb exam impersonation in the just concluded JAMB exams. He reiterated that the West African Examination Council (WAEC), will also use the same technique of making NIN compulsory to curb impersonation in WAEC SSCE exams.
Other announcements that were made are the introduction of Computer studies and Physical health education to the list of JAMB subjects; which brings the total number of subject candidates can choose in JAMB from to 25.
Prison inmates, visually impared candidates and foreign candidates are exempted from writing Post-UTME exams.
While talking about the previous academic year, the JAMB registrar announced that about 600,000 candidates have been admitted out of 956,809 admission slots available in the 962 tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Mr Oloyede further stated that private universities in the country were able to admit 36,381 candidates out of the 120,938 slots allocated.
The stakeholders agreed to conclude amendments to the 2021/2022 JAMB admissions by October 29, 2021.
