Over Half Million Admission Spaces Not Utilised – Oloyede
The Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede has disclosed that out of 1,159,977 candidates who sat for UTME in 2019, about 612,557 were admitted while about 510,957 admission spaces were not utilized thereby calling on all stakeholders to correct this anomaly.
Prof. Oloyede made this known during a 2020 virtual policy meeting on admissions ,with Vice-Chancellors, Rectors, Provosts, Admission Offices from higher institutions all over the country and other stakeholders.
According to the Registrar, no institution is allowed to go below the minimum score pegged for admission as JAMB is set to optimise technology for increased efficiency.
“Admissions for the first choice is expected to commence in August, 2020. One of the decisions taken was that universities will have minimum score point of UTME as decided by each of the universities.”
”For polytechnics and colleges of education, it is also as decided by each of the institutions except that no institution would be allowed to admit a candidate for universities if you have scored less than 160 in UTME but that is not the only thing that will be taken for admission this year.
Prof. Oloyede stated that the cut off mark for admission into Universities was fixed at 160, polytechnics120 and colleges of education-100.
As usual, the policy meeting always signals the commencement of admission process for the 2020/2021 academic session, but owing to the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, the board had to organised the webinar meeting in order to maintain the social distancing rules.
Furthermore, it was announced at the virtual meeting that foreign students and candidates in Nigeria’s correctional homes among others will be exempted from doing post UTME tests.
“Some of them will do a physical assessment and that will be added to their UTME scores to determine the cut-off marks.’’
Also at the virtual meeting, the Federal Government mentioned six conditions to be met by schools ahead of the planned reopening of tertiary institutions.
Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba said the six conditions are to protect pupils and students against COVID-19 and urged parents to be patient with government.
“While we Iook forward to easing the Iockdown which will ultimately lead to re-opening of our campuses, I urge all the Heads of Institutions not to wait till the announcement on reopening before putting in place all necessary measures in compliance with the protocols and advisories of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
According to the minister, all institutions must have the following;
(1) Hand-washing facilities.
(2) Body temperature checks.
(3) Body disinfectants at all entering points to their major facilities including the gates, hosteis, classes, offices, etc.
(4) The whole premises of each institution must be decontaminated.
(5) All efforts must be geared towards maintenance of the highest level of hygiene.
(6) Ensure Social Physical Distancing in class sizes and meeting spaces.
“All heads of schools should start putting measures in place to meet the terms as we are demanding decontamination of all schools and new class sizes which will accommodate social and physical distancing.” He concluded.
