JAMB To Reduce 180 Cut-Off Mark For Admission Seekers

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has introduced flexible cut-off marks, in doing so, may approve the reduction of 180 cut-off mark for admission to tertiary institutions.

The disclosure was made on Monday by the Registrar of the Board, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, at the second technical committee meeting on “2016 Admissions to Tertiary Institutions” held at the Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri.

Oloyede stated that the decision became imperative as a result of the inability of some of the institutions to implement the cut-off mark.

The Registrar said: “It was in a meeting of the Board of higher institutions and other Stakeholders that a decision of 180 as the 2016 National cut-off mark was reached”.

“However, many Institutions, though part of the decision, have expressed concern on their inability to effect this cut-off mark as they are finding it difficult to fill a reasonable percentage of their quota if the rule is strictly applied as we insist.

“A large number of institutions, particularly the budding ones, have applied for a waiver to enable them admit candidates who in some instances scored below 180 marks. For some, this may sound unreasonable with the largely false impression that a large percentage of those who score above 180 and are qualified for admission cannot find any placement in our institutions.

“I think this cry needs attention, otherwise, some of these institutions whether public or privately-owned may soon begin to wobble or even close shops. This will be counter-productive and even defeat the Government Policy of expansion of access to higher education and manpower development”.

He therefore added that, “as a Board, we have studied the trend of admissions and have come up with a finding that hardly do the institutions collectively fill their quota annually. Indeed, in some cases, up to 50% of approved quota is wasted particularly by upright institutions which do not circumspect the rule. Unfortunately, a large number of institutions flagrantly disregarded the cut-off and many other policies yet they found a way to eventually regularize the illegal admissions through corrupt process”.

Oloyede also stressed that the new flexible cut-off will only be applicable to institutions that have exhausted the list of candidates that scored the 180 cut-off mark.

His words: “As a Board, we have collated the requests from the various Senates and Academic Boards and have made your pleas known to appropriate authorities. Just this morning we received a green light on flexible cut-off mark only for institutions which have exhausted the list of candidates with 180 and above, subject , of course to a minimum acceptable to JAMB and meeting of other pre-requisite”.

The JAMB Registrar further warned that no institution, whether Federal or State, will be allowed to continue with admission of students after the November 30 deadline.

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#Recession: JAMB Too Broke To Conduct UTME – Registrar

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has expressed that inadequate funding posed a challenge to the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.



Speaking on Wednesday, when he received a delegation of the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institution and Tertiary Education Trust Fund in his office in Bwari, Abuja, the Registrar, JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, said:

 “The major challenge facing the board has to do with funding. We take N5,000 from each candidate.

“We do not even have the money to conduct the examination.

“Rather, we call on third party to do some of the things and they only give some commission to JAMB because we do not have enough money to invest.

“Conduct of examination across the country requires intensive human participation; you will recruit invigilators and monitors and then it costs so much money to set exam questions.

“The capital allocation is N1 billion; the release so far is N45.57million; the overhead cost is N50 million allocated, but N24.9 million is what we have received so far.

“The N24.9 million given is not sufficient to pay electricity bills because all the 36 states and zonal offices depend on what comes from headquarters for their funding.”

Oloyede appealed to the National Assembly to review its decision on the bill seeking to validate the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination for three years to avoid harm.

In the same vein, the exam body said tertiary institutions in the country have not been able to successfully fill 70 per cent of their admission quotas by candidates in the last five years due to uniform cutoff marks adopted by the federal government.

Oloyede said: “Every year, we do not meet 70% of the quota contrary to what people think that there are more people than the existing places.
We have in the last five years, not filled 70% of the quota. We need to ask a question, why? The simple answer is a mismatch.

“I can say it without any doubt that it has never been obeyed. It is only obeyed in the papers. When you talk about the practice of it, there are hundreds of people in our universities, polytechnics and colleges of education that have not gone through JAMB.

“The reason is that we are setting standards that cannot be obeyed. They (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education) will now go through the back door and recruit people with 160, 150, 140 and some who did not take JAMB at all because you have made 180 the minimum.”

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UTME Result 3-Year Validity: Senate Suspends Amendment Of JAMB Act

The Senate on Wednesday suspended the amendment of the Act establishing the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) so as to allow for adequate consultation with stakeholders.

The upper chamber had earlier ratified the extension of the validity of the results of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) being conducted by JAMB to three years.

According to the senate, the decision was granted to lessen the financial burden of the examination on parents, students and JAMB.

Confirming the suspension, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary), Senator Aliyu Wamakko, told reporters during a visit to the headquarters of JAMB in Abuja, that the senate would not approve laws that would impede the progress of any institution.

Represented by Senator Ajayi Boroffice, Wamakko said:

“Your JAMB result is only valid for one year and we thought it will be better for it to be valid at least for three years. It will reduce the burden on the parents, on the students themselves even on the institution that is conducting the test. I think it is what is good for all of us and I don’t think the public will reject it.

“As I said we don’t make laws for an individual or for the senate. We make law for the country in the interest of all of us. A bill must not necessarily be at the convenience of a particular organization, having said that, since we don’t want to make a law that will impede the progress of any institution we are bound to listen to what they are saying. We are bound to listen to them.”

“I think JAMB has made so much progress over the years and all we can say is that they should continue to improve on their performance because the lives of millions of Nigerians will depend on them and I hope the confidence they will repose in them they will be able to justify it. We are happy with our visit, we are happy with the registrar, we are happy with the management and I think we are happy with ourselves too,” he added.

In his reaction, JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, lauded the senate for heeding to its appeal to suspend the amendment of its Act.

The Registrar also called on the members of the House of Representatives and the Executive to follow the footstep of the senate by giving room for consultation with stakeholders.

He said: “I believe that they must have considered so many things before coming to that conclusion at that time but my appeal is to the other legs – the House of Representatives and to the President that it will do more harm to the students than good.

“One problem I find is that when there is a problem rather than studying the problem and look for strategy to solving them we will jump into conclusion which is more dangerous than the original problem.

“When you look at the issue of three years somebody mentioned that that is what is done in Britain and US. There is a basic difference. They are conducting aptitude test and aptitude test will last longer. We are conducting achievement test and you can’t compare the two. If you want to go in that direction why not but there will be change of infrastructure, everything will be in place. You don’t midway into a system.

“For instance when you make that type of law you have not contacted NUC to say ‘NUC change your syllabus.’ You want to admit somebody you conduct the exam today the intension is to test the ability of the student to cope with university education at the 100 Level for instance.

If they change the syllabus our exam must change and that will not synchronize with your three years. You will having a set of students who are tested for a programme different from the one they are doing.”

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Breaking! JAMB Result Can Now Last For 3 Years Instead Of 1 Year… See Full Details

The Nigerian senate has, according to reports, extended the validity of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) result to three years.



JAMB results, normally are valid for just a year, but the upper legislative chamber on Thursday passed an amendment bill to extend its lifespan to three years.
Presenting the report of his committee on the bill, Jibrin Barau, chairman, senate committee on tertiary education and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), said that the amendments would further strengthen the admission board in its responsibilities.

Appreciating his colleagues on the passage of the bill, Senate President Bukola said that the new amendments would bring financial relief to students and parents, and reduce bottlenecks and corruption in the admission process.

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Confirm!! JAMB Scraps the use of Scratch Card for it’s Transactions(Read Details)

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has scrapped the use of scratch cards for any of its services and transactions, adding that it would now be using the platform of pin vending to check all forms of fraudulent practices which was prevalent with the use of scratch cards.



This means Webpay interswitch will replace the use of Scratch cards.

A statement issued on Sunday by the spokesperson of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, reports the board’s Registrar/Chief Executive, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, as declaring in a paper he delivered during a meeting of the Association of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities that the use of scratch cards is “archaic”.

He also demanded that the Federal Government should revert to the former system where serving Vice Chancellors of Universities were made chairmen of the Governing Board of JAMB.

“The decision is as a result of its consistent subjection to fraudulent practices, the use of scratch cards is archaic and it is the drive by JAMB to also promote accountability in line with government’s zero tolerance for corruption. This new system will be accessible through the options of web payment, ATM issued cards (Visa, verve and Mastercard), online quick teller, ATM payment, quick teller mobile application and Bank Branch case/card,” Oloyede said.

He further disclosed that in the past, the understanding was that only serving Vice-Chancellors were made chairmen of Governing Board of JAMB.

While appealing that government should go back to the practice from inception, the JAMB Registrar argued that since the agency is a creation of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors, it would only be proper for them to be clearly recognised as active stakeholders to avoid any acrimony between tertiary institutions and JAMB.

He was optimistic that going back to the old practices would “engender good synergies and harmonious relationship with a view to effectively delivering on its mandates.”

Oloyede recalled that for almost two decades, specifically between 1977 and 1993, only serving Vice-Chancellors were made Chairmen of the Board of JAMB, from Prof Oladipo Akinkugbe, VC University of Ilorin; Prof Donald E.U Ekong, VC University of Port Harcourt; Prof Adamu Baike, VC University of Benin; Prof Mahdi Adamu, VC University of Sokoto and Prof Isa Mohammed, VC University of Abuja.

He said, “This practice which promoted harmony and quality inputs on the Board’s matriculation activities have since been forgotten or neglected. The appointment of the chairman of the Board could be restricted to only heads of tertiary institutions in Nigeria perhaps in rotational basis among the Vice-Chancellor of Universities, Rectors of Polytechnics, Monotechnics and Provosts of Colleges of Education.”

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FINALLY JAMB Validity Extended To 3 years

The Nigerian Senate has passed the amendment to the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board's Act #JAMBBILL SB. 245 into law. Part of the amendment is the extension of the validity of JAMB UTME results to 3 years WOW!!.
This new amendments will indeed bring financial relief to students as well as parent and reduce bottlenecks and corruption in the admission process.

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JAMB Report: The Reasons Why UNILORIN Is The Most Preferred Tertiary Institution in Nigeria

Earlier this week, the University of Ilorin (Unilorin) in Kwara State, emerged the ‘2016 university of first choice’ among student-applicants in Nigeria.



A survey ‘painstakingly’ carried out by the Economic Confidential, using computed and analyzed details as approved by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on preferred first university of choice in 2016, showed that Unilorin had the highest student-applicants of 103,238 students, with male student-applicants of 51,082 and female student-applicants of 52,156.


Using the report as gathered from JAMB, the Economical Confidential inferred that applicants seeking admission into universities considered academic stability, popularity, affordability, available facilities and quality of lecturers as part of their check-list before making choices in their applications.

In a list of 40 federal Universities in the country, Unilorin was rated number one followed by the University of Benin, with student-applicants of 81,363 made up of 39,729 of male applicants and female applicants of 41,571.

Ahmadu Bello University, Northwest Nigeria is third in the ranking while the fourth and the fifth are University of Nigeria Nsukka and Bayero University, Kano both South-East and North-West Nigeria respectively.

Speaking on the development to Premium Times, JAMB spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, disclosed that the students’ checklist as outlined in the report was not determined by the Board.

He said: “JAMB has no way of determining these factors from information available to us through the frequency of schools chosen by Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates.”

“What we do each year, is to roll out data on the institutions with the highest number of applicants.

“For some years now, the University of Ilorin has been topping that chart, this does not mean that the school is the best in the country. It just shows students’ preferences.”

“We only have access to the number of students who choose these schools. We cannot determine why they do so. UTME candidates are not asked why they choose schools.”

“For instance, if we have 1.6 million candidates applying through JAMB and 120,000 candidates choose University of Ilorin as first choice, automatically it becomes the most popular choice for that year, that is how we arrive at our data.”

As said by the spokesperson of JAMB, it remains unclear why applicants prefer the Kwara-based federal university ahead of others, but what remains clear is that:

Unilorin is one or perhaps the only institution in the country that hardly embark on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike actions – a problem that has plagued many federal universities in the country.

As a result of this, the university was said to have one of the fastest academic calendars of all institutions in the country.

Also, Nasarawa State University, Imo State University, Kaduna State University, Delta State University and Adekunle Ajasin University were the most popular state university choices for 2016.

While Covenant University, Afe Babalola University, Babcock University, Igbinedion University and Bowen University are the most popular private university choices for 2016.

The University of Ibadan, which was recently placed at 801 in the 2016/2017 global ranking of 1,000 universities carried out by Times Higher Education (THE), was spotted at number 8.

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