Stakeholders, Not JAMB Pegged JAMB Cut-Off Marks At 120 –Oloyede Replies Critics

As controversy continues to trail the cut-off marks of 120 set for University admission this year, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB said it never imposed the cut off marks as widely reported, but the stakeholders did after a consensus

JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede made this known after a meeting he held with stakeholders of tertiary education in Nigeria as he disclosed that the short-fall in the number of candidates who qualified for admission this year was the reason the cut of marks was lowered so abysmally.

He said only 569, 395 of the 1.7 million candidates that wrote this year’s UTME scored over 200 marks.

Quoiting from statistics, the JAMB Registrar said many tertiary institutions in Nigeria experienced shortfalls in the number of applications for admissions in their school because the number of applicants who scaled the WAEC hurdles and at the same time scored more than 200 in their JAMB exam was nut more than 15 percent.

He said even when the Cut off mark for admission was lowered to 190, those who could obtain admission with secured WAEC result were not more than 18 percent.

He said the situation was so bad that most tertiary institutions had to beg JAMB for candidates to be admitted amid other shortcomings, which, according to him were beyond them.

The Registrar recalled that some institutions in the past even admitted candidate who never sat for JAMB to make up for the gap in the admission process, while facing the hurdle of having to regularize the illegally admitted students after completion of their studies.

Oloyede said the number candidates who scored 200 and above in the last JAMB exam represents just about a third of the students who sat for the examination. The total score for the UTME exam is 400.

He said 23.8 per cent of the total number of the candidates scored below 160 marks.

He said the stakeholders unanimously agreed that the minimum cut-off marks for university degree is to stand at 120.

The stakeholders, according to him, peg that of Polytechnic to be 100, College of Education 100, while National Innovative Enterprise Institution remained at 110 marks.

The registrar said the timelines for admission of first choice was October 15, while second choice would be December 15.

Mr. Oloyede urged the heads of the various tertiary institutions to set their modalities for admissions exercises as it was not the board’s responsibility.

He said that no candidate without O’ Level prerequisite would be offered admission.

“JAMB has a Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) to aid you on the admission exercises.

“CAPS will not replace admission processes of institutions. It will enable institutions to simply communicate with JAMB in a more dynamic and timely manner.

“It will also allow for flexible cut-off marks and candidates are allowed to make their choice of institution and course,” he said.

The registrar, however, appealed to heads of institutions not to charge more than N2,000 for admissions’ processes.

In his remark, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, commended the board for conducting the UTME.

According to him, the stakeholders have worked together to create synergy for advancement of education in the country.

“We restate our commitment to ensure expansion of access to students in our institutions.

“To ensure equity in regard to rural and urban areas; we are committed to refocusing our curricula to meet our development need,” he said.