612, 557 candidates enroll in higher institutions in 2019 as FG approves 2020 cut-off scores

A total of 612,557 candidates out of 1,157,977 who wrote the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) have been offered admissions in various higher institutions.

Also, the Federal Government has approved the start of the 2020/2021 admission exercise and stipulated minimum UTME marks required by candidates to get spaces in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

Registrar, JAMB, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, who made the revelation at the 2020 virtual policy meeting on admissions in higher institutions said about 510,957 admission spaces were unused by higher institutions in 2019.

Oloyede said that only 1,157,977 candidates who sat for the UTME last year had the required five credits with English Language and Mathematics.

He said, “Out of 1,157,977 candidates who sat for UTME in 2019, 612,557 were admitted.” Oloyede disclosed that candidates waiting for their results would only be considered for admission when they are uploaded on JAMB’s website.

The meeting approved 160 marks and above as minimum UTME requirement for admission into universities in 2020/2021 session as well as 120 marks for polytechnics and 100 marks for colleges of education and innovation enterprise institutions.

In his remarks, Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, directed JAMB and institutions to proceed with the conduct of 2020/2021 admissions in August, based on the guidelines released by JAMB.

Represented by the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, Adamu said: “As major stakeholders, we must jointly come up with reactions that would realign our programmes to these new realities.  “While these reactions are being fine-tuned to check their capacities and capabilities to withstand the new reality, JAMB and tertiary institutions could take advantage of the current situation and consider candidates with previous years Senior School Certificate Examination and other qualifying results, to proceed with the admission process.

Whatever arrangement that the country comes up with in the long run, will surely accommodate those who will be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out.”