After 43 years, JAMB scraps general cut-off marks for admission into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cancelled the general cut-off marks for admission into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions — for the first time in 43 years.

The board broke the news during a virtual policy meeting chaired by Adamu Adamu, the minister of education.

JAMB, which was founded in 1978, said it will now give institutions the freedom to set their individual minimum benchmarks for admission.

Speaking at the meeting, Is-haq Oloyede, the board’s registrar, said different tertiary institutions across the country have chosen different cut-off marks for its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

“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 University 190,” he said.

“Covenant University 190, Bayero University Kano, 180. Institutions have now been given the liberty to decide cut-off marks, there will be no cut-off from JAMB.”

At the meeting, it was agreed that the maximum score a candidate can present for direct entry (DE) is 6 and the minimum is 2 or E.

It is understood that the stakeholders resolved to allow the education ministry to decide the deadline for closing admissions after they couldn’t agree on December 31 for all public institutions and January 31, 2022, for privates.

As in the 2021 guidelines, all applications for part-time or full-time NCE, OND, and others programmes are to be posted only through JAMB.

In 2020, JAMB had last year fixed 160 as the minimum cut-off mark for varsities, 120 for polytechnics, and 100 for colleges of education.