Prof Tahir Mamman, the Education Minister, has reversed his earlier statement in which he urged the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, or JAMB, to admit only candidates over the age of 18 to postsecondary institutions.
Mamman said on Thursday, during an ongoing JAMB policy meeting in Abuja, that only applicants aged 18 and up were eligible for admission.
Stakeholders in the meeting objected to his assertion, arguing that it is nonsensical for a 16-year-old student to pass WAEC and JAMB but be denied admission.
In response, the minister later approved stakeholder suggestions that applicants aged 16 and up be eligible for admission this year, with the statute taking effect the next year.
JAMB Cut-off Mark
Meanwhile, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has approved 140 as the cut-off level for 2024 admission to the country’s universities and 100 for polytechnics and institutes of education.
The National Minimum Tolerable UTME Score (NTMUS), also known as the cut-off score, for 2024 admission into tertiary institutions was determined on Thursday during the 2024 annual policy meeting on admissions, which was held at the Body Benchers Headquarters in Abuja.
The meeting took place following the successful completion of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). There were 1,989,668 registered candidates for this year’s UTME.
Out of 1,989,668 registered candidates, 80,810 were missing, while 1,904,189 took the UTME within six days of the exam.
Professor Tahir Mamman, Minister of Education, presided over the policy meeting, which was decided based on recommendations from institutional heads.
The JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, who announced the cutoff marks, noted that individual universities were free to enhance their minimal benchmark agreed at the policy meeting but could not fall below what was allowed for different institutions.