The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and the tertiary education stakeholders have adopted 150 and 100 as the National Minimum Tolerable Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination score also known as the cut-off point for 2025 admission into the nation’s universities and for polytechnics and colleges of education respectively.
Also, the Federal Government reiterated its stand on the 16 years as a minimum for admission into tertiary institutions.
The resolution which came up at this year’s annual policy meeting on admissions into tertiary institutions held in Abuja, also adopted 140 for colleges of nursing across the country.
This means that no tertiary institutions should admit students who score below the approved benchmarks, while institutions can still fix higher cut-off marks for their applicants.
JAMB Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede and the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, wanted the institutions to increase the minimum tolerable score to at least 160.
However, most of the heads of institutions were quite adamant about increasing the minimum tolerable scores.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government reiterated 16 years as the minimum age for admission into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
Alausa, while declaring the meeting open, emphasised that the age benchmark was now official and non-negotiable, warning that any admission carried out outside the Central Admissions Processing System would be considered illegal.
He explained that the decision was guided by the need to strike a balance between academic readiness and cognitive maturity.
Alausa noted that while the policy would be strictly enforced, exceptions could be made in rare and justifiable cases.
He also warned against attempts to manipulate age records to beat the new directive.