Should Jambites with 180 or more in JAMB immediately put down their books?

Should Jambites with 180 or more in JAMB immediately put down their books?

Global Update

Admin Admin
03-06-2016 14:43:00 +0000

By now most of you have probably seen reports of proposed changes to the admission requirements to getting into Nigerian schools.

Although the picture is not totally clear here’s a summary of what has been reported so far:

i) Statements by the Minister of Education (reported in Vanguard Newspaper):
- “As far as I am concerned, the nation has confidence in what JAMB is doing, the universities should not be holding another examinations and if the universities have any complain against JAMB, let them bring it and then we address it.”
- ”But if JAMB is qualified enough to conduct tests and they have conducted test, then there will be no need to conduct another test for students to gain admission.”

ii) Tweets by the Senate President:
- Today at the [Nigerian Senate], we passed the 2nd Reading of a bill to amend the validity period of JAMB from 1 year to 3 years

iii) Other related news being reported
- There will be no scratch card fee for checking JAMB results
- The cutoff mark for universities is set 180 this year (no details reported about polytechnic cutoff mark)

Should jambites with 180 or more in JAMB immediately put down their books and begin celebrating guaranteed admittance into their school of choice?

While it’s tempting to believe everything that is being written all over the news, it’s important to take a critical look at this information and try to separate fact from fiction. This will help every jambite know the best actions to take right now.

A few facts that should make one have second thoughts about the scrapping post utme AND setting the cutoff mark to 180

- About 1.7 million Jambites apply for about 800,000 seats. One of the big problems is that are not enough spaces to accommodate all Jambites.
- Ending post UTME will not create more slots at higher education so the universities still need a way to screen for the best candidates. For example. Unilorin has about 100,000 applicants and only 9000 slots. Even smaller universities and polytechnics have too many candidates.
- Additionally, post UTME has been used as the primary means to implementing education affirmative action programs in Nigeria.

Our opinion:

- Statements by Minister of Education may not be the final word on this. We need to hear from the universities and other stakeholders
- It’s not clear if these rules apply to private universities. It’s not even clear if these rules will take effect immediately
- Many schools will need to either raise their cutoff, do post utme or find another way to select only the best candidates

Our Advice:

Continue your studies but monitor the situation closely. Only when you have received direct announcements from your school of choice confirming the cancellation of any planned post UTME should you make any changes to your preparation.

The Jambite team will continue to closely follow this issue and we’ll do our best to keep you informed.

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