JAMB Finally Releases Admission Cut-Off Marks

Too many people have called me and send messages to ask about this cut-off mark issues. Anyway, after a long wait, the Federal Government, in consultation with the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, has come out with the cut-off marks for 2014 admissions into universities and polytechnics.

The cut-off points were arrived at on Tuesday, after the 5th Combined Policy meeting on admissions to tertiary institutions, held at the National Universities Commission in Abuja. The cut off marks are...

180 for universities while polytechnics and colleges of education were put at 150, respectively.

The Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, who declared the meeting open, frowned on the inability of most tertiary institutions to utilise their admission quota. Wike, however, said in view of efforts to boost access, institutions which failed to utilise their admission quota for 2014 would be sanctioned.

The Registrar and Chief Executive of JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, in his presentation gave a statistical run down of candidates’ preference for tertiary education.

He said after the conduct of the 2014 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, candidates who applied for degree awarding institutions totalled 1,584,348, representing 70 per cent; National Certificate in Education applicants totalled 25,767 representing 1.6 per cent; National Diploma, a paltry 22,072, representing 1.3 per cent while National Innovation Diploma had just 46, representing 0.003 per cent.

Ojerinde complained that Nigeria’s educational system has consistently failed to embrace technical education in its quest for industrialisation, noting that the British system which Nigeria copied now award degree in all its polytechnics.