By Ngozi Nwankwo
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, and other education stakeholders have pegged the 2024/2025 admission cut-off marks for universities in the country at a minimum score of 140 in Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, 100 for polytechnics, and Colleges of Education.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, made this known at the 2024 Policy Meeting on Admissions into Tertiary Institutions in Abuja on Thursday.
Oloyede said that the policy meeting, chaired by Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman and attracted universities’ Vice Chancellors, polytechnics’ rectors, colleges of education provosts and registrars, was to streamline modalities for the conduct of the 2024 admission.
He said that no university, polytechnics and colleges of education must admit candidates less than the agreed minimum cut-off requirements, but added that each institution should only take in students according to their individual cut-off marks submitted to JAMB.
Oloyode further said that institutions were also mandated to adhere strictly to their various admission requirement stipulated in the Central Admissions Processing Systems,CAPS,institutions.
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Also, the Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman has vowed to enforce a law mandating 18 years minimum admission age for entry into tertiary education institutions.
Mamman said the enforcement would commence after the 2025 UTME in order not to affect candidates who sat for this year’s exam, as they were not informed of the development before registering for the JAMB exam.
Minister said the enrolment of underage candidates is inflicting serious damage on the university and the education system, hence, the need for enforcement of extant rules.
“When I was monitoring the just concluded 2024 UTME, I was alarmed at the participation of a large number of obviously under-age candidates in the examination.
“This necessitated my comment on the need to enforce the extant provisions of the educational policies which made provision for nine years of basic education and three years of Senior Secondary Education before entry into tertiary institution.
“It is clear that a child who, as expected is enrolled in basic school at the age of six and having undergone 12 years of education would be around 18 years old when being enrolled in a tertiary institution,” he said.
He further said, “I have also been informed about the surge in applications for immediate requests for a change of age to reflect higher age in anticipation of the imminent enforcement of the age policy. This again reflects dangerous games being played with the life and future of innocent children by those expected to nurture them. Flowing from this, JAMB is hereby instructed to admit only eligible students’ i.e those who have attained 18 years. Universities are advised to avoid recommending unqualified children for admission.”