The Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) has released the cut-off marks for the 2014 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), retaining the existing 180 cut-off mark for admission into universities in Nigeria.
The board has also pegged the cut-off marks for admission into Polytechnics and Colleges of Education (COE) at 150.
These were arrived at on Tuesday, after debate by stakeholders, including vice chancellors, Rectors and Provosts at the fifth combined policy meeting on admissions to tertiary institutions held at the National Universities Commission (NUC).
JAMB Registrar and Chief Executive, Professor ‘Dibu Ojerinde, who made this known while speaking with newsmen, said the decisions were unanimously accepted by all stakeholders at the meeting.
Chairman of the Board, Mr Eze, however, urged the institutions to strictly adhere to 60:40 Science to Arts ratio for conventional institutions and the 70:30 Technology to non-Technology ratio for specialised institutions, which were aimed at entrenching the technical advancement of the country.
Eze equally urged both federal and state-owned institutions to abide by the guidelines approved by their proprietors to promote unity, integration, geographical spread and equity.
“Accordingly, the 45:35:20 admissions quota for the merit, catchment area and educationally-less-developed states criteria should be complied with by federal institutions,” he said.
Supervising Minister of Education, Mr Nyesom Wike, who declared the meeting open, frowned at the inability of most tertiary institutions to utilise their admission quota.
He, however, said in view of efforts to boost access, institutions which failed to utilise their admission quota for 2014 would be sanctioned.
He reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to the development of ICT training, which he said had already been inculcated as part of the standard curriculum at the secondary school level.
He said: “I have been briefed that despite the rising demand for higher education vis-a-vis the availability of a large number of qualified candidates, some institutions did not fully utilise the admissions quota approved for them by relevant regulatory agencies in 2013.
“This disservice to the Nigeria child is totally unacceptable, in line with efforts of the Federal Government to improve access, let me urge you all to with effect from today, work assiduously to ensure that all admission spaces in your institutions for the current year are fully utilised within the approved time frame,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Professor Ojerinde, in his presentation, gave a statistical run down of candidates’ preference for tertiary education.
He said after the conduct of the 2014 UTME candidates who applied for degree awarding institutions or universities were 1,584,348, representing 97.07 per cent, NCE applicants totalled 25,767, representing 1.579 per cent, National Diploma and a paltry 22,072, representing 1.349 per cent, while NID had just 46, representing 0.003 per cent.
Ojerinde wondered why Nigeria’s educational system had consistently failed to embrace technical education in its quest for industrialisation, saying the British which Nigeria copied the polytechnic education from awarded degree in all its polytechnics.
