JAMB pegs university cut-off at 120

THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has fixed the minimum cut-off marks for 2017 university admission at 120, polytechnics and colleges of education at 100, despite the ongoing strike by the academic staff union of universities.
The Registrar of JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, announced this at a policy meeting on the 2017/2018 admission exercise held in Abuja.
Institutions are, however, at liberty to raise their cut off marks for admission above the minimum set by JAMB.
Also, admissions into public degree awarding institutions for the 2017 UTME examination will end on January 15, 2018 while for private institutions, it ends on January 31, 2018.
Also, decisions on first choice candidates by universities will end on October 15, and second choice candidates will end on December 15; after which the remaining students will be available in the market place for other institutions till the January closing dates.
The JAMB Boss said a Central Admission Processing System, CAPS, will be used to streamline admission processes among institutions, as it addresses challenges associated with the former approach.
Mr. Oloyede also said that Institutions could conduct dual mode system which involves both manual and the newly introduced CAPS.
He advocated a dynamic educational policy as related to admissions saying, “All over the world, there is agitation for dynamic educational policy,” he said. “JAMB only admits for National Diploma, not Higher National Diploma; so why should we use the same requirement for ND and BSC, that is unreasonable parity.”
“We should not be sentimental in fixing our cut off mark; we need not over-dramatise issue of cut off mark.”
He said candidates’ applications to study agriculture was very low while applications to study medicine and health sciences increased.