JAMB, higher institutions fix 2019 UTME cutoff marks | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
11th June 2019
Cutoff marks for admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria for the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) admissions exercise have been fixed.
This was at the Admissions Policy Meeting for Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria held on Tuesday, 11th June at the Bola Babalakin Auditorium in Gbongan, Osun State.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) annually convenes the policy meeting with invitation extended to heads of all public and private universities, polytechnics and monotechnics, colleges of education and innovative enterprise institutions in the country and other stakeholders.
EduCeleb.com recalls that the 2019 UTME was conducted back in April while the results were released a month later.
It was approved at the meeting that 160 and above be the national minimum benchmark for admission for the year 2019 into public universities.
Also, 140 is the minimum UTME score for admission into private universities.
For public polytechnics, 120 UTME score was approved, while 110 score was approved as the least score for admission into private polytechnics.
Also, entrants into Colleges of Education are required to score at least 100 while those seeking admissions into Innovation Enterprise Institutions should score a minimum of 90 marks.
Attendees at the meeting also approved 19th December, 2019 as the date for the closure of admission into public universities and 15th February, 2020 for private universities and other higher institutions.
JAMB Registrar, Professor Is-haq Oloyede told the audience that admission into all universities would be conducted via the Central Admission Processing System (CAPS) like it was in the past two years.
He also emphasised that JAMB was not responsible for the fixing of cut-off marks for tertiary institutions as it was rather a consensus between the institutions and stakeholders at the policy meeting.
He, however, warned institutions not to fix cutoff marks below what the stakeholders decided at the Admissions Policy Meeting.
The Permanent Secretary, Mr Sonny Echono issued a directive that persons with disabilities, prisoners and candidates who wrote from international centres were exempted from writing the post-UTME tests.
Earlier in his remarks, Director of Tertiary Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr Joel Ojo said the outcome of the recent investigation into the multiple UTME registration of candidates carried out by JAMB was a pointer that the examination industry requires a review.
Ojo, who represented the education minister, said the Policy Meeting remains the acceptable forum where plans and programmes for admissions are discussed and approved to guide the placement of qualified candidates to tertiary institutions.
Oloyede used the opportunity of the meeting to highlight some of the successes and challenges faced with the 2018 admissions and stated actions taken to improve on that in subsequent examinations. He reiterated commitment to maintaining and improving on the integrity of the UTME.