2020 UTME: JAMB Announces Date For Admission Exercise To Begin Nationwide

The Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) has drawn guidelines to the heads of the nation’s higher institutions on the 2020 admission.

According to Vanguard, the board says it has directed higher institutions to commence first and second choice admission exercise as from August 21, 2o2o.

JAMB’s spokesman, Fabian Benjamin broke the news on Sunday while making the 2020 admission guidelines available to journalists in Abuja.

The board, however, warned institutions against advertising or selling application forms into specific programmes, nothing candidates should rather apply for such through its office.

The newly released guidelines added that application for admission into all forms of higher institutions would be solely handled by JAMB through its central admission processing system.

It also noted that institutions that violate the stipulated guidelines by the board would face appropriate sanctions. The guideline read:

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“The first and 2nd choices admission-exercises be conducted for all institutions from August 21 2020 to a later date that would be determined by the Federal Ministry of Education and communicated to all the institutions. The uncertainties of the COVID-19 make it impossible to fix a terminal date.

“All institutions are to conduct their admission-exercises within the approved schedule for 1st and second choices respectively. At the expiration of the period, any institution that failed to have conducted its admission will no longer have the candidates on its platform in CAPS.

“Policy guidelines for 2020 admission-exercises as approved by the policy meeting and the directives by the Honorable Minister of Education shall be formally communicated to the institutions on or before 15th July, 2020.”

The guideline also warned institutions against charging candidates above N2,000 as well as requesting additional data from them aside the ones provided by JAMB. It added:

“No institution is allowed to recapture or demand any photograph or biometric data from any candidate rather, the picture and biometric of candidate supplied by JAMB should be used for the exercise to eliminate impersonation and substitution of real candidate.”

The guideline also stipulates that candidates who wrote the 2020 UTME but later obtained higher qualifications either A-levels or its equivalent, could apply to convert the UTME to the DE for free. It further stated:

“After successful completion and submission of the form, the candidate’s UTME registration number has letter “U” appended to it (the registration number now becomes 11 digits). For instance, the UTME registration number 25513377AD after converting to DE becomes 25513377ADU.

“Record of candidates who have converted from UTME to DE can only be accessed on CAPS with the eleven (11) digits registration number.”

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On advertorials, JAMB said:

”Institutions that desire to place advertisement can do so by advising candidates who applied for the current UTME to change to their institution as First (1st) Choice rather than requesting the candidates to purchase another application form or apply”, adding: ”This is to prevent the issue of double registration which is a violation of the JAMB mandate.”

It explained that the mode of, ”The Admission-Exercise for the 2020/2021 Academic Session would be conducted on Central Admission Processing System (CAPS)”, adding that: ”No Institution is allowed to publish, announce, exhibit or paste any name(s) of admitted candidate without prior approval of the name on CAPS.”

Insisting that the exercise would only be fully conducted on CAPS, JAMB explained that the principal participants are the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) as Chairman; Heads of Tertiary Institutions; Director of Admissions (JAMB) Admission Officers of Tertiary Institutions; JAMB Desk Officers; and Candidates.

Among the procedures for admission, according to JAMB include:

”Recommendations and Approval Institutions are to recommend candidates for admission after having presented to the Board the following information through CAPS: The approved general quota for each institution and the distribution to the various programmes; Minimum UTME score for each programme; Minimum DE qualification grades for Direct Entry Candidates; Components of Cut-off marks and the allotted score for each component; the cut-off date for the 1st and 2nd Choice admissions after which no result upload nor change of Institution as 1st Choice would be allowed; supplementary admission can be allowed but fresh candidates cannot have right to being on merit list but through other criteria to fill existing vacancies; and other admissions criteria (if any).”

JAMB further said: 

”No institution will be allowed to recommend or admit any candidate whose UTME score is below the following threshold:Degree — 160;ND — 120;NCE — 100;NID — 100.

Institutions cannot reduce their submitted minimum UTME score on the basis of National minimum score in (H2) above. Only institutions with minimum UTME  score lower than the National minimum UTME score are obliged to upgrade to meet or surpass the National Minimum score.

In the same vein, no institution can graduate a candidate who has not been a full time student of that institution for at least 2 consecutive years.

Affiliated institutions are to adopt the same minimum UTME scores as the mother institutions.”

The development comes about the same when JAMB also urged the Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres to strictly adhere to the COVID-19 protocols.