By Adetunji Ayobrown
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said that the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination is no qualification for admission into any institutions of higher learning in Nigeria.
Claiming that the board does not impose a minimum cut off mark on any institution, and that every higher institution in Nigeria has its own cut-off.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede in an interview on TVC television, said this, “to the best of my knowledge what has always happened over ten years is each institution determines its own cut-off points”.
He said, not arbitrary, each institution considers the number of candidates applied with the number of vacancies available to decide its points. After this, it comes to what we call national policy making where every institution will submit its own determined cut-off points.
For example, if a university settles for 200, it can never admit students with 199”.
He further said, “JAMB doesn’t impose the minimum cut off mark on any institution and we don’t even allow it. If a university takes 200 as its minimum, it cannot recommend to JAMB to approve any student with 199. Because 200 was the announced and publicised cut-off point. And once the cut-off point is announced, that is it”.
According to him, though, there are institutions that recommend ridiculously low cut-off points, on the stance that fewer candidates apply to such institutions, JAMB normally turns such back that they are not acceptable.
He said that “the minimum acceptable to us is this and we can have candidates from over-subscribed institutions to change, but unfortunately, the public thinks the cut-off is the minimum that we have ventured and that is the reason, JAMB was quiet this year over cut-off marks”.
“JAMB was completely quiet over the cut-off points this year, and that is what we did differently this year. Except about four or five institutions, went below the minimum, and such were replied quietly without any publicity, because whenever we publicise, emphasises are always on the minimum”.
“It was a communication problem. What we have done this year is not different from what we have been doing for over ten years”.
He said, “I don’t know where people got the idea of the national cut-off mark because it has never been. It was a matter of communication”.
“Every institution in Nigeria has its own cut-off. What has been call cut-off is not really it. When an institution comes asking for the best ten students to be given scholarships, these candidates will still be subjected to other tests, JAMB always advises.”
“Cut-off point is the first stage. JAMB always urges scholarships awarding individuals, private bodies and government organisations, let us determine the first ten, best hundred and only after everything is added together. There are about three stages if a student applied to some institutions like Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA), physical performances and exercises are also added together”.
Oloyede declared that Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is not the qualification for admission, but a tool for ranking those presumed qualified.
He clarified, “what many unknowingly call the cut-off mark is just a part of what we know as the cut-off, because, it doesn’t determine the final qualification. For example, with 400 marks at UTME, 60% at post-UTME without five ‘O’ level results including mathematics and English language, the candidate goes nowhere”, he said.
