The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has clarified that the recently adopted 140 cut-off mark for admissions to Nigerian universities is not uniform for all the institutions.
JAMB said a 140 score in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is only a minimum benchmark for universities to consider for admissions.
The board added that it has no hand in setting the benchmark, noting that it was a collective decision among all tertiary institutions in the country.
This clarification, contained in a statement by Fabian Benjamin, JAMB’s head of public affairs and protocol, was in response to a comment by a former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nasir Fagge.
Fagge had during the interview suggested that JAMB, as an agency, decides the uniform minimum UTME points required for admission.
“Where in the world will you have a particular outfit to determine what is best for institutions of learning in terms of admission?” he had said in the interview.
Mr Benjamin said before the commencement of the admission process every year, all institutions write to JAMB, stating the preferred cut-off points for their institutions.
“After this process, there is usually a policy meeting with heads of all Nigerian tertiary institutions where the minimum cut-off point will be decided,” he said.
He added that the minimum cut-off point means that no institution can adopt the cut-off point below the agreed minimum point –which is 140 in 2022.
Also, he noted that no institution can admit students below their respective cut-off point submitted to JAMB.
He said: “More than 50 per cent of the universities had submitted in writing their minimum scores of 200 and above to the Board for presentation to the meeting for the purpose of deliberation. The implication of this process is that no institution would be able to admit any candidate with any score below what they had submitted as their minimum score.”
