JAMB explains admission procedure to protesting candidates, parents

JAMB-CBT

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said that the national cut off point for screening of candidates for admission remained the minimum expectation that each candidate desirous of university admission should have. This is contained in a statement issued by the Public Relations Officer of the board, Dr Fabian Benjamin, made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Lagos.

According to the statement, the attention of the board has been drawn to the challenge experienced by some candidates who could not access the University of Lagos site to register for the Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The statement said that the board sincerely sympathised with their frustration.

“We want to seize this opportunity to state that our attention has been drawn to the agitation by some parents and students who turned out for the registration for the post JAMB screening exercise for the candidates. “We sympathise with them but wish to state categorically that the national cut off point is just the minimum expectation that each candidate desirous of university admission should have.
“However, universities are at liberty to go higher than 180, depending on their peculiarities and the performance of candidates who chose them.

“For instance, if over 10,000 candidates who made Unilag their first choice scored 250 and above, it will be difficult for them to go lower than 250 when they are to admit only about 7000.
“I wish to state that a time will come when some universities will go up to 300 as their cut off mark, depending on the performance,’’ the statement said.

It explained that because of the development, the board decided that some of the candidates who chose such institutions but fall below their cut off marks should not miss out, hence the need to send them to other schools.

The statement added that such a gesture should rather be applauded, instead of condemning the Dibu Ojerinde-led JAMB management.