JAMB Releases 2014 Universities/Polytecnics Cut Off Marks

On Tuesday in Abuja, the Federal Government in consultation with the Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) and other stakeholders pegged the cut-off marks for 2014 admissions into universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education (COE). The event was the 5th Combined Policy meeting on admissions to tertiary institutions, which held at the National Universities Commission (NUC). The cut-off for universities was fixed at 180 while that of polytechnics and colleges of education were both placed at 150. The Registrar and Chief Executive of JAMB, Dibu Ojerinde in his presentation gave some statistics on the preference of candidates who wrote the 2014 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination(UTME). He said that the candidates who applied for degree awarding institutions or universities totaled 1,584,348 representing 97.070 per cent. This means that less than three percent of candidates applied for NCE, ND and NID combined. Further breakdown showed that only 25,767 candidates (representing 1.579 per cent) applied for NCE; 22,072 (representing 1.349 per cent) applied for ND; while just 46 people (representing 0.003 per cent) applied for NID. Ojerinde wondered why Nigeria’s educational system has consistently failed to embrace technical education in its quest for industrialisation, saying the British which Nigeria copied the polytechnic education from now award degree in all its polytechnics.