Cut-off Mark: Misleading, A Misnomer- JAMB

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The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, has described the term, ‘cut-off mark’ as used in Nigeria, as misleading, and a misnomer, stressing that each tertiary institution sets its own Realistic Institutional Admittable Minimum UTME Scores (RIAMUS).

Prof. Oloyede gave this insight during the 2023 Policy Meeting on Admissions to tertiary institutions in Nigeria, held at Andrews Otutu Obaseki Auditorium, National Judicial Institute, Abuja, on Saturday, 24th June 2023.

According to the Registrar, the term
‘cut-off mark’ is misleading as there is
no unified national cut-off mark,
rather what is obtainable is the
Realistic Institutional Admittable
Minimum UTME Scores (RIAMUS),
which is the minimum score that the
Senate/Academic Board of each
the institution has approved for the
purpose of admission of its students.

Prof. Oloyede, however, stated that no
institution can go below its self-
set RIAMUS and no other institution
could use the RIAMUS of another for
the purpose of its admissions
because the score is an institution-
specific.

Furthermore, the JAMB helmsman
disclosed that UTME Score does not
single-handedly guarantee any
candidate admissions to tertiary
institutions in the country, as it is only
one of the criteria among many
others such as five credit passes in
five relevant O ‘level subjects, O “level
subjects grading, post-UTME Score
and 6040 Science: Arts ratio, among
other criteria as defined by the
proprietors of the institutions.

In the same vein, the Registrar stated
that the National Tolerable Minimum
UTME Score (NTMUS) is the score
below which no institution in the
country will consider any candidate
for admission.

This, he said, is usually decided at the Policy Meeting, not by individual institutions.

He, therefore, said that the NTMUS of 140 for universities, 120 for Polytechnics and 100 for Colleges of Education arrived at by participants does not mean that an institution with a RIAMUS of 200 must admit candidates on the basis of NTMUS of 140,100;100 as the RIAMUS might be equal or higher that the NTMUS.

On the NTMUS for the 2023 Admission exercise, the Policy Meeting resolved on 140 as the minimum score for admissions into universities and 100 respectively for admissions into both Polytechnics and Colleges of Education nationwide.

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