(Fred Ezeh)

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said the points system as criteria for admis­sion into tertiary institutions in the country was a mere il­lustration.

This was contained in a statement by the board’s Head of Media and Informa­tion, Dr Fabian Benjamin, yesterday, in Lagos.

JAMB said the Federal Government had approved re-enforcement of admis­sion guideline as recognised by law.

According to the state­ment, admission of candi­dates into tertiary institu­tions would be based purely on three pillars namely: mer­it, catchment and education­ally less-developed states.

The statement, candidates are to present their Senior School Certificate Exami­nation (SSCE) results/Ad­vanced Level (AL) results for verification and clearing purposes.

It said West African Ex­amination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO) and NBTE results or its equivalent are acceptable as matriculation requirements.

The statement added that each candidate is expected to have a minimum of five credits at SSCE, including English, Mathematics and any other three relevant subjects to his or her disci­pline.

It also added that the list of qualified candidates awaiting SSCE/AL results could be kept in view, pend­ing the release of their re­sults.

The board said the points ssystem, copied from its website last week and cur­rently in circulation, was simply used for illustration by its Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde.

“Sequel to the recent workshop convened by the Minister of Education, Mal­lam Adamu Adamu on the modality for 2016 admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria, the federal gov­ernment approved the re-enforcement of admissions guideline recognised by law.

“This followed the can­cellation of the post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Ex­amination (UTME).

“This is not the points sys­tem as widely circulated. It was meant to demonstrate how few institutions were using the points system to select candidates while some were subjecting candi­dates to written tests.

In a related development, JAMB disclosed a statement posted on its website that the Computer Base Test (CBT) for the conduct of ex­ams for candidates seeking admission into universities has not been scrapped.

Few weeks ago, Educa­tion minister affirmed that JAMB is the only statutory body to conduct admission exams into higher institu­tions and any other one in that regard is contrary to the country’s Constitution and should be stopped.