By Abiola Olawale
Following public outcry, candidates who have attained the age of 16 years will be considered for admission into tertiary institutions for the 2024 academic year.
This came after the Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, made a U-turn in his earlier statement, where he directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), to admit only candidates who have attained 18 years in tertiary institutions.
Several stakeholders at the ongoing policy meeting of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), had protested the declaration that only candidates who have attained the age of 18 would henceforth be given admission into tertiary institutions in the country.
Following heated debates which lasted for minutes, Mamman was said to have caved in to their submission and accepted the suggestions of the stakeholders that from 16 years and above should be eligible for this year’s admission, while the law would apply from next year.
During the policy meeting, JAMB also announced the approval of 140 as the cut-off mark for 2024 admission into the nation’s universities and 100 for polytechnics and colleges of education respectively.
Registrar of JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede made this announcement on Thursday.
He further 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.
The New Diplomat reports that this id coming following the successful conduct of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). There are 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.
