The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and tertiary education stakeholders on Thursday in Abuja adopted 180 as the cut-off mark for 2016 admission into universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
The decision was made at the 2016 Combined Policy Meeting on Admissions to Degree, Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) and National Diploma (ND) chaired by Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.
In his opening remark, Adamu said that if there was confidence in JAMB’s conduct of University Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), there should be no need for post UTME.
“If the universities have problem with what JAMB is doing, they should come forward with it and we will address it.
“JAMB is one of the most active parastatals in the ministry; I expect that policies that would be beneficial to Nigerian students should be discussed at this meeting.
“I believe there should be no ground to lower the quality; Nov. 30 remains the closing date for 2016 admission.
“No institution should exceed its quota in admission; we will start issuing penalties to defaulting institutions,’’ he said.
Adamu urged JAMB to provide permanent scratch cards for candidates per session so that they did not need to buy new cards to effect changes or corrections.
Speaking, JAMB’s Registrar, Dibu Ojerinde, said that screening of candidates at institutions’ level remained but it would no longer be written examinations.
He said that 180 cut off mark was the minimum benchmark as different institutions should modify according to their specifications, capacity and other variables.
Ojerinde said that more candidates performed better in 2016 than in 2015.
The JAMB boss said that Imo state retained its position as the state with the highest number of candidates; while FCT had the least number.
He said that there was also a significant reduction in irregularities because of the introduction of Computer Based Test (CBT).
