Abba Ibrahim Gwale
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) scrapped general cut-off marks for tertiary admission on Tuesday, giving schools the authority to determine their own minimum admission standards.
The Board made the decision at the 2021 policy meeting, which was held digitally and led by Malam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education.
During the meeting, JAMB Registrar Prof. Is-haq Oloyede stated that some universities proposed 150, Usman Dan Fodio University Sokoto proposed 140, Pan Atlantic University proposed 210, University of Lagos proposed 200, Lagos State University190, Covenant University190, and Bayero University Kano proposed 180.
The parties also agreed that the deadline for closing modifications for 2021 admissions would be October 29, 2021.
The parties agreed to let the government decide on the timeline for closing admissions because they could not agree on December 31, 2021 for all public institutions and January 31, 2022 for all public institutions.
Stakeholders also approved the 2021 admission standards, which stipulate that all applications for part-time or full-time degree programs, NCE, OND, and other qualifications must be submitted only through JAMB.
The meeting agreed that the greatest score a candidate can present for Direct Entry, DE, is 6, and the minimum score is 2 or E, as required by law.
He also stated that the candidate’s credentials must be submitted on CAPS and approved by the institution, JAMB must approve the candidate, and the candidate must accept the offer of admission.
He stated that if candidates do not accept an offer, the school might replace them after notifying JAMB.
The instructions that every institution is free to admit candidates based on its own minimal score agreed by the institution and the policy meeting were also adopted at the policy meeting.
The meeting also agreed that each institution shall keep its own minimum score, as determined by the policy meeting.
According to stakeholders, admissions in 2021 will be performed solely through CAPS, and no institution will be permitted to enroll candidates without first uploading their information to CAPS.
Oloyede also revealed that the board will introduce two new subjects for the 2021/2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME: computer studies and physical and health education, raising the total number of subjects to 25.
Prison inmates, the visually impaired, and international applicants were also exempted from participating in the post-UTME exercise, according to the stakeholders.
Oloyede noted that roughly 600,000 people have been admitted so far out of the 956,809 admittance seats in the country’s 962 higher education institutions.
Oloyede claimed private colleges in the country were only able to admit 36,381 students out of the 120,938 slots available to them, citing a lack of competent candidates for numerous courses.
Minister of Education, Adamu, who opened the policy meeting, praised JAMB for incorporating the National Identification Number, or NIN, into the UTME registration process.
The minister, who was represented by Sonny Echono, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, said that the use of NIN significantly reduced examination malpractice in the 2021 exam, and that the West African Examination Council, WAEC, will follow suit by making NIN mandatory.
“I am enthused that the last examination recorded the lowest cases of examination irregularities in the history of the Board because those who will normally have exploited the weak links through biometrics infractions had been effectively check-mated with the introduction of NIN by JAMB.
“It is gratifying that the WAEC has decided to follow the path of using NIN to curb examination malpractices. The Ministry is presently considering other ways of using the NIN to uncover some other admissions irregularities and all perpetrators including their collaborators in the institutions would be made to face the consequences. ”
On illegal admissions being conducted by some tertiary institutions, the minister expressed concerns that the government’s directive that all admissions should be done through JAMB’s Central Admissions Processing System, CAPS, is being violated.
