…cut-off is 100 points for polytechnics/colleges of education
…37 new private varsities set to kick-off
The Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) has set the cut-off mark for 2022/23 admissions into Nigerian universities at 140 points and above.
This follows the putting in place of an official curriculum upgrade for Nigerian universities, aimed at lifting the quality of graduates to best global standard.
Intakes of the 2022/2023 academic session are expected to be the first beneficiaries of the upgrade announced by Mallam Adamu Adamu, erstwhile minister of education in March.
The JAMB cut-off mark was disclosed on Saturday by the Registrar of the board, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, during a presentation at the 2023 Policy Meeting on Admissions to Tertiary Institutions and Awards held in Abuja.
The cut-off mark is the minimum score that a candidate must attain to qualify for admission into Nigerian universities.
Oloyede noted that JAMB had also approved a score of 100 points as the cut off-mark for polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria.
He however said universities are at liberty to decide individual cut-off marks but that no university should admit any candidate who scores below the 140 point benchmark.
At the policy meeting, the Federal Government further charged JAMB to continue to maintain the sanctity of its examinations.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, David Adejoh, said a compromised examination system will impact negatively on the nation’s work force.
Meanwhile, the curriculum upgrade was contained in document tittled “the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) Book 1 series for Nigerian universities.”
The document was put together by the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) under the supervision of Professor Peter Okebukola.
The new Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) Book 1, upgrades the content of 17 academic disciplines in Nigerian universities.
The purpose of the upgrades is to equip Nigerian graduates with the skills and frame of mind to compete in a rapidly changing global employment and entrepreneurship environment, said Adamu Adamu, erstwhile minister of education.
He added: “The implementation of CCMAS requires dedication, hard work and willingness to embrace change by everyone, therefore it is important we embrace training and equipping our academics with the necessary skills and knowledge to implement CMAS.”
He called for the full implementation of the curriculum, asserting that it is one of the greatest steps taken by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to ensure Nigerian universities meet current global demands.
In the past two decades, the quality of Nigerian graduates has been broadly questioned, with captains of industry asserting that the nation’s graduates often needed to be retrained to be able to fit into industry.
Subsequently, many employers insist on engaging graduates with first class or second class upper degrees, in the hope of sieving quality personnel from deficient ones.
As a result, a big and costly market for quality education abroad has since evolved. It is estimated that in the eight years of the President Buhari administration, Nigerians spent $4billion on foreign education.
Some of the causes of falling standards in Nigerian universities are listed as including a massive influx of unprepared students into tertiary institutions, inadequate funding, poor infrastructure and outdated curriculum.
Other causes include a brain drain of teachers in search of greener pastures, long closures of tertiary institutions due to strike actions by academic staff, as well as student unrest, exam malpractices and cultism.
Meanwhile, Professor Rasheed Abubakar, erstwhile Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC) said 37 new private universities had been approved to operate in Nigeria in March, bringing the total number of private universities in the country to 148.
Nigeria currently has 246 accredited universities and churns out an estimated 500,000 graduates a year.
