The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has abolished national admission benchmark, which is popularly known as cut-off mark.

What this portends for the tertiary institutions in the country is that each of them is free to set its own cut-off mark for prospective students.

The decision was taken at  the 2021 virtual policy meeting which was held on Tuesday, 31st August, 2021 and was presided over the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono.

It was revealed that some universities, polytechnics and colleges of education have sent their various cut-off marks to JAMB, which means they have been notify of the development before this policy meeting

Speaking during the meeting, the Registrar of JAMB Prof. Is-haq OLanrewaju Oloyede said some universities such as University of Maiduguri proposed 150, Usman Dan Fodio University Sokoto proposed 140, Pan Atlantic University proposed 210, University of Lagos 200, Lagos State University190, Covenant University190, Bayero University Kano, 180.

Speaking on other admission criteria, he said the candidate’s credentials must be uploaded on CAPS and recommended by the institution, JAMB approves and the candidate accepts the offer of admission. He added that if candidates have not accepted an offer, the institution can change the candidate after informing JAMB.

According to the stakeholders, the 2021 admissions will be conducted only through CAPS, no institution is allowed to admit candidates without uploading their details on CAPS.

Oloyede further said that the board is introducing two new subjects: computer studies and physical and health education for 2021/2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, bringing to a total of 25 subjects.

 The stakeholders also exempted prison inmates, visually impaired and foreign candidates from sitting for post UTME exercise.

Speaking on  the 2020 admissions, Oloyede said out of the 956,809 admission spaces in the 962 higher education institutions in the country about 600,000 have so far been admitted. 

While saying there are many admission spaces that have not been filled up in several courses due to lack of qualified candidates, Oloyede  said private universities in the country were only able to admit 36,381 candidates out of the 120,938  spaces available to them. 

Declaring the policy meeting  open, Minister of Education, Adamu, commended JAMB for introducing the use of National Identification Number, NIN, in the UTME registration process. The minister said the use of NIN drastically reduced examination malpractice in the 2021 exam, adding that the West African Examination Council, WAEC, will also follow similar path by adopting mandatory use of NIN.