The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board has retained the 2023 benchmark for admission into tertiary institutions across the country.
The board approved 140 as the cut-off mark for 2024 admission into the nation’s universities and 100 for polytechnics and colleges of education respectively.
The National Minimum Tolerable UTME Score (NTMUS), popularly known as the cut-off mark, for 2024 admission into tertiary institutions was arrived at on Thursday during the 2024 annual policy meeting on admissions, which was held at the Body Benchers, Headquarters, Abuja.
The meeting was held following the successful conduct of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). A total of 1,989,668 registered candidates for this year’s UTME.
Out of the 1,989,668 registered candidates, 80,810 were absent while a total of 1,904,189 sat for the UTME within the six days of the examination.
Meanwhile at a policy meeting held on Thursday and chaired by the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, and decided following recommendations by the heads of institutions.
Registrar of JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, who announced the cutoff marks, explained that individual institutions were at liberty to raise their minimum benchmark approved at the policy meeting but could not go below what was approved for various institutions.
Other resolution reached at the meeting included the age limit for admission we seekers.
The ministers had earlier directed that admission should only ne ghrantned to candidate who are 18 years and above. The decision was met with fierce rejection by the stakeholders who argued that students under the age of 18 had already registered, sat and passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and were only awaiting admission.
The minister conceded to the argument noting that the 18year benchmark will take effect from next year.
