The Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) and stakeholders from tertiary institutions in Nigeria have approved 160 as the cut-off score for 2019 admission into public universities.
The decision was reached at the 19th Admission Policy meeting of Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria, Tuesday at Bola Babalakin Auditorium, Gbongan, Osun State.
Stakeholders at the meeting, including heads of all public and private universities, polytechnic, monotechnics and colleges of education, also approved 140 as minimum Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) score for admission into private universities.
For public polytechnics, 120 UTME score was approved, while 110 score was approved as the least score for admission into private polytechnics.
JAMB to delay the release of the 2019 UTME results heightened the anxiety in over 1.8 million candidates who sat for the examination.
The unusual delay has, aside from frustrating the preparation and academic plans of most candidates, also provided a leeway for dubious mercenaries operating Computer Based Test (CBT) centres to deceive and dupe unsuspecting candidates seeking solutions.
BusinessDay investigations reveal that carrying capacity in tertiary education institutions in Nigeria has not significantly improved in relationship to the exponential growth in the number of candidates seeking tertiary education in the country.
Tertiary education institutions in Nigeria include, but not limited to, the universities, colleges of education and polytechnics. In the 2019 UTME, over 1.8 million candidates sat for the examinations, while the spaces available were not more than 500,000.
Fabian Benjamin, spokesman for JAMB, had explained that the board would carry out all the necessary steps before releasing the result.
Benjamin said that JAMB won’t release the result instantly because the JAMB Registrar had discovered that public outcry over the little delay in the release of result made it a little bit difficult to do things that would guarantee the credibility of the results.
According to him, “Many candidates had in the past escaped with illegitimate acts they perpetrated during the UTME exercise, and that won’t be allowed to continue.”
He opines that the board would strictly follow the process so that things could be done right. “We are less concerned about the time, but more about how well and credible the results become; neither policy meeting nor admission will start this month. So, the delay will not affect any item on our timetable,” he said.
KELECHI EWUZIE
