UTME 2024: JAMB opens up on 'fixing cut-off mark', see full details

• Controversy lingers on who should decide the cut-off marks between JAMB and Nigerian tertiary institutions
• JAMB said there is no uniform minimum national UTME score for any of the tiers of tertiary institutions
• The examination board also stated that it does not decide such requirements for any institution

Legit.ng journalist Ridwan Adeola Yusuf has over 9 years of experience covering education in Nigeria and worldwide.

Garki, Abuja - Following the completion of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) 2024, the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has explained that the board does not fix the 'cut-off mark'.

In its weekly bulletin on Monday, July 29, JAMB said the 'cut-off mark' "should, at any rate, be rightly referred to as the "minimum tolerable admission score".

JAMB has reiterated that it is the responsibility of tertiary institutions to decide and determine admission cut-off marks for candidates and not the examination body.
Source: Twitter

JAMB said contrary to what is being insinuated in some quarters, it is not responsible for fixing the 'cut-off mark'.

Oloyede said the explanation became necessary to correct "the erroneous impression" that minimum tolerable admission scores for respective institutions were decided by JAMB saying it is the responsibility of the tertiary institutions themselves to decide their respective institutional minimum tolerable admission score.

Furthermore, the JAMB boss stated that what was arrived at policy meetings were benchmark national minimum tolerable admission scores for admission into the nation's tertiary institutions.

This score, according to him, is the minimum score a candidate, who wrote the UTME, is required to attain for admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions noting that what JAMB does is to simply escalate same to the public and ensure that the institution does not go lower than that.

Furthermore, Oloyede noted that the minimum tolerable score is a pruning mechanism to peg application limits to manageable size through which candidates compete for available spaces in the nation's tertiary institutions.

In the same vein, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) stated that it is erroneous for parents or candidates to make claims of meeting the minimum tolerable score and as such should be given automatic admission adding that the minimum score was just a benchmark and not for automatic placement of candidates for admission as there are other variables and parameters to be considered.

It would be recalled that participants at the 2024 policy meeting on admission had approved the national minimum tolerable UTME score for the 2024 admission into the nation's higher institutions as 140 for universities while 100 was approved for polytechnics and colleges of education and innovative enterprises institutions.

Earlier, the JAMB registrar explained that the institutions, which proposed lower minimum tolerable scores, would have to increase their benchmarks to the agreed minimum tolerable points. He, however, added that institutions have the liberty to peg the institutional tolerable score above the agreed minimum points.

Source: Legit.ng