POST UTME SCRAPPING: See what Minister Of Education said

 

The Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu announced the decision to scrap the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (post-UTME) at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) stakeholders meeting which recently held in Abuja to determine the cut-
off mark for prospective tertiary institution students seeking admission in the 2016/2017 academic session. 
The Minister said it was counter-productive for candidates to write post-UTME after having sat for and passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) organized by JAMB. The minister had asked representatives of universities and other tertiary institutions present at the stakeholders meeting whether or not they were satisfied with the conduct and results of UTME. They all said UTME as conducted by JAMB was satisfactory. The minister then said, “Since the universities are satisfied with what JAMB is doing, there is no basis for post-UTME.” He added that it was not appropriate for universities to coerce candidates to sit for post-UTME as a requisite condition for admission.

Interpreting the minister’s pronouncements later, the National Universities Commission (NUC) said universities were still at liberty to ‘screen’ students sent to them for admission by JAMB. NUC’s Public Relations Officer Ibrahim Yakassai said ‘screening’ in this context includes verification of candidates’ UTME slip, SSCE results and other sundry admission documents. We fear that some institutions could exploit NUC’s interpretation of the decision by escalating screening into a paper and pencil test. We therefore urge the Ministry of Education to issue a clear-cut statement to universities on the scrapping of post-UTME. The same statement should elaborate on what is meant by ‘screening’ that universities may wish to conduct.
Besides the scrapping of post-UTME, the minister also instructed JAMB to stop charging N1,000 per candidate for the scratch cards used in accessing UTME results online. At the close of the meeting, a cut-off mark of 180 was approved for the 2016/2017 admission into all institutions in the country.

Source: Daily Trust