2020 UTME

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced 160 as the cut-off mark for admission into Nigerian universities for the 2019/2020 academic session.

The board said the cut off mark for Polytechnic is 120 while that of Colleges of Education and other innovative institutions stands at 100.

Speaking at the 2020 policy meeting on admissions to tertiary institutions on Tuesday, the Registrar of JAMB, Ishaq Oloyede, said 612, 557 candidates were offered admission in 2019 out of the 1.8m that wrote the examination.

He said about 510,957 admission spaces were unused by tertiary institutions in 2019.

He said candidates waiting for their results will only be considered when they are uploaded on its website.

In his remarks, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu directed JAMB and tertiary institutions to proceed with the conduct of 2020/2021 admissions.

He said admission processes are expected to commence in August based on the guidelines released by JAMB.

The minister who was represented by the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, appealed to JAMB and tertiary institutions to consider candidates with previous years’ Senior School Certificate Examination and other qualifying results for the admission process.

This is against the backdrop of the senior secondary school examination calendar by the Covid-19 health crisis.

He said the government will make an arrangement to accommodate applicants who will be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out.

“As major stakeholders, we must jointly come up with reactions that would realign our programmes to these new realities. While these reactions are being fine-tuned to check their capacities and capabilities to withstand the new reality,” he said.

According to him, JAMB and the tertiary institutions could take advantage of the current situation and consider candidates with previous years’ Senior School Certificate Examination and other qualifying results, to proceed on with the admission process.

“Whatever arrangement that the country comes up in the long run, will surely accommodate those who will be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out.”

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and Heads of Tertiary Institutions are expected to meet June 16 over cut-off marks and other guidelines for the 2020/2021 Admission exercise.

The exam body announced the 2020 Policy Meeting of tertiary institutions in its weekly bulletin obtained by our correspondent on Monday.

According to the bulletin, the policy meeting, which is expected to hold online, will be chaired by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.

The bulletin read in part, “Part of the protocols put in place by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19 requires that no gathering of persons exceeding the prescribed number.

“Compliance with this directive has become imperative as no fewer than 4,000 Heads of Tertiary Institutions comprising Degree, Diploma, NCE, and NID-awarding institutions and other stakeholders would normally be expected to congregate at a location but because of extant protocols, they would now be expected to participate in the virtual meeting.

“The meeting will discuss critical issues bordering on the advances made in the educational sector in the last one year in addition to setting the tone for the 2020/2021 Admission exercise.

“The meeting will also chart policy directions for the nation’s tertiary institutions, set admission guidelines, and make a holistic review of application statistics, performance as well as evaluate the 2019 admissions exercise.

“The meeting, in addition to other deliberations, would take a stand on concessional and acceptable minimum admissions standards to be applied in all admissions to be undertaken by all tertiary institutions in Nigeria.”