Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has kicked-off the admission exercise for 2020/2021 academic year for tertiary institutions with the announcement of cut-off points for admissions.
The Board announced cut-off points for various institutions: universities from 160, polytechnics from 120, colleges of education and innovative institutions from 100.
JAMB Registrar Prof Ishaq Oloyede, who announced the development at the end of the Board’s 2020 Policy Meeting, warned institutions against charging candidates more than N2,000 for their screening exercise
In his presentation, Oloyede disclosed that 510,957 admission spaces were unused by tertiary institutions in 2019 admission year.
He also disclosed that 612,557 candidates were offered admission out of the 1,157,977 candidates that sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 2019.
He noted that the 2020 admission exercise has kicked off, and asked tertiary institutions to proceed with the conduct of 2020/2021 admissions following the approved guidelines.
Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu, who was represented by the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, in his remarks, urged JAMB and tertiary institutions to consider candidates with the previous year’s Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) and other qualifying results to proceed with the admission process.
He promised that the government will make an adequate arrangement that will accommodate applicants who would be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out.
‘As major stakeholders, we must jointly come up with reactions that would realign our programmes to these new realities. While these reactions are being fine-tuned to check their capacities and capabilities to withstand the new reality, JAMB and tertiary institutions could take advantage of the current situation and consider candidates with previous year’s Senior School Certificate Examination and other qualifying results, to proceed on with the admission process.
‘Whatever arrangement that the country comes up with, in the long run, will surely accommodate those who will be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out,’ he explained.
The Policy Meeting, which is, usually attended by heads of tertiary institutions in Nigeria, heralds the commencement of admission processes in tertiary institutions. Decisions on admission cut-off points for all institutions are taken at the meeting.