The Minister of Education Adamu Adamu, has directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and tertiary institutions to proceed with the conduct of 2020/2021 admissions. The Minister stated this at the 2020 virtual policy meeting on admissions to tertiary institutions.
Represented by the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, Adamu urged JAMB and tertiary institutions to consider candidates with previous years Senior School Certificate Examination and other qualifying results, to proceed with the admission process. According to him, admission processes are expected to commence in August based on the guidelines released by JAMB; adding that government will make arrangement that will accommodate applicants who will be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out.
“As major stakeholders, we must jointly come up with reactions that would realign our programmes to these new realities.” While these reactions are being fine-tuned to check their capacities and capabilities to withstand the new reality, JAMB and tertiary institutions could take advantage of the current situation and consider candidates with previous years Senior School Certificate Examination and other qualifying results, to proceed on with the admission process. “Whatever arrangement that the country comes up with in the long run, will surely accommodate those who will be taking the examination when the opportunity to do so is worked out”, the minister said:
The Registrar of the Board Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, also disclosed that out of 1,157,977 candidates who sat for UTME in 2019, about 612,557 were admitted. He also said that about 510,957 admission spaces were unused by tertiary institutions in 2019. Oloyede said that only 1,157,977 candidates had the required five credits with English and mathematics that sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations last year. And only that candidates waiting for their results will only be considered when they are uploaded on its website.
