By Gabriel Dike, Lagos
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and heads of tertiary institutions in Nigeria will be meeting Tuesday to deliberate on the 2021 admissions exercise.
The crucial meeting will decide the fate of 1.4 million candidates who wrote the 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) nationwide and in three foreign countries.
The admission policy meeting will also attract key stakeholders such as vice chancellors, rectors and provosts from private and public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Also expected are the Executive Secretaries of National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), heads of West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO), Director General, National Youths Corps Members (NYSC) and other relevant agencies involved in admissions.
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, will declare the policy meeting on admissions open as well as release the ministerial guidelines for the 2021 admissions exercise.
JAMB and the heads of tertiary institutions will deliberate and come out with the cut off marks for the 2021 admission exercise which will make or mar the 1.4million candidates waiting for the outcome of the meeting.
Heads of private institutions may likely ask for different cut off marks because of their peculiarities.
The policy meeting will also decide when the 2021 admissions will start and end with different dates for public and private tertiary institutions.
Also, at the policy meeting, the education minister will roll out the Federal Government guidelines for the 2021 exercise.
JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, will preside over the meeting with the heads of institutions and also issue out criteria for the 2021 admissions exercise.
Investigations revealed that very few universities, polytechnics and colleges of education are ready to start admission this year because they are battling to conclude the 2019/2020 admission exercise due to the strike and COVID-19 pandemic.
About 1,415,501 million candidates registered for both UTME and Direct Entry.