Nigeria: FG Reverses JAMB’s New Admission Policy

The Nigerian government has decided to overrule the new admission policy of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, due to the recent spate of protests that ensued in the country.

This disclosure was delivered on Wednesday via the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr. MacJohn Nwaobiala, while interacting with State House correspondents after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on his ministry’s activities and challenges at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

In the just concluded 2015 Combined Policy Meeting, JAMB had adopted a policy whereby candidates of universities with surplus applicants for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, UTME, are reassigned to other universities with lower number of applicants than their capacities.

However, Nwaobiala explained that the Federal Government in a meeting with parents and stakeholders had commenced consultation with the aim of identifying where adjustments could be made.

According to him, this was as a result of the dust raised by the development.

He further revealed that students who attained the cut-off marks have been directed to go and sit for post-UTME in their schools of first choice since that was the bone of contention.

Nwaobiala said, “This JAMB thing has been there. As the policy making body, when these issues were raised, they raised in a stakeholders meeting. We normally have what we call the policy meeting. Everything about admission are discussed with parents and other stakeholders at the meeting.

“These are decisions that we collectively took. However, we have a listening hear. We have taken a lot of the issues raised into consideration and we are consulting to see the adjustments we can make here and there.

“The directive has been given. All the students that made the cut-off marks have been told to go and write post-UME examinations in their schools of first choice. After, they can go to their schools of second choice. That has been the bone of contention”.