By Grace Udofia
Nigeria’s decision body in charge of admissions into its tertiary institutions, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cancelled the general cut-off marks it earlier fixed for admissions into various institutions across the country.
JAMB had on Tuesday morning announced that it will determine the fate of candidates seeking admission into these tertiary institutions during its 2021 policy meeting.
The meeting which was held virtually, was chaired by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu who commended JAMB for introducing use of National Identification Number(NIN) in the registration process for UTME.
Adamu who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, said the use of NIN drastically reduced examination malpractice in the 2021 exam, adding that the West African Examination Council, WAEC, will also follow similar path by adopting mandatory use of NIN.
“It is gratifying that the WAEC has decided to follow the path of using NIN to curb examination malpractices.
“The Ministry is presently considering other ways of using using the NIN to uncover some other admission irregularities and all perpetrators including their collaborators in the institutions would be made to face the consequences,” he said.
In his remarks, the Registrar of JAMB, Is-haq Oloyede said some universities such as the University of Maiduguri proposed 150, Usman Dan Fodio University Sokoto proposed 140, Pan Atlantic University proposed 210, University of Lagos 200, Lagos State University 190, Covenant University 190, Bayero University Kano, 180.
During the meeting, he explained that the stakeholders also approved October 29, 2021 as deadline for the closure of amendments for 2021 admissions.
On the deadline for the closure of admissions, they resolved to allow the ministry to decide, as they could not agree on the December 31, 2021 deadline for all public institutions and January 31, 2022 for all private institutions.