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UTME: Why Some Candidates With High Scores May Not Get Admission – JAMB

Published

4 months ago

May 7, 2024

Securing high score in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is not enough to secure a candidate admission, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has said.

JAMB made the clarification yesterday through its spokesman, Dr Fabian Benjamin, who fielded questions with Arise Television.

“Admission is contingent upon the cutoff marks set by schools and specific departments”, he stated, adding:

“If you look at our examination and begin to analyze it without understanding the basic principles for which we conduct this examination, you may likely be misleading the public.”

“Otherwise, you begin to concentrate on the disruptive element of such exercise. Our examination is not a pass-fail examination; it is a selection exercise”, Dr Benajmin said.

“If you look at the statistics that we keep reeling out and discussing out there, you will discover that a reasonable number of these candidates score less than 200 and above. They have not really failed this examination because it depends on what you want to do with such an exercise.

“Our examination, just as I’ve said earlier, is a selection exercise. You can only say a candidate has failed if, in the final analysis, the purpose of such an examination is not achieved.

“I will give you an example. We want to celebrate candidates who have scored 300 or above. And I want to shock you by saying that there are some of them who may not even be admitted with that high score, depending on where they want to go, while some candidates who have scored less than 200 will end up succeeding and being admitted.

“For instance, if I want to read physics today and I have 180 or 200, I may likely gain admission, while somebody who wants to read medicine, for instance, has 320, but he may not be admitted. Because if you want to go to the University of Lagos with 320, on the ranking order of the University of Lagos, you may be number 300.

“Also, maybe the current capacity for that program is1 just around 200. So it depends on the subscription to the programme that you are aspiring to go to. It depends on the university to which you want to go. It depends on the tertiary institution, whether it’s a polytechnic or a college of education,” he said.

The Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) is a computer-based examination that all prospective candidates of JAMB must take to be eligible for admission.

It had remained, not only competitive because of the sheer number of candidates seeking university admission, but also in terms of the criteria needed to take the UTME.