JAMB adopts point system option for 2016 admissions

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has
announced the release of its guidelines for the 2016
admissions’ process.
The method, described as the point system option, was
adopted after an extensive one-week meeting JAMB had
with universities and other tertiary institutions’
administrators in the country.
According to the guidelines contained in a statement
placed on its website on Monday night, JAMB said that
the modalities were going to be based on point system.
While explaining how the admission process would work
for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination candidates
and direct entry students, the organisation stated that
universities were going to charge fees for screening of
candidates at the end of the process for admission.
According to JAMB, the new method uses a point
system to offer provisional admission to candidates.
“Before a candidate can be considered for screening, he/
she must have been offered a provisional admission by
JAMB. The JAMB admission checker portal is going to
be opened soon for this process, so praying is all you
can do now,” JAMB said.
The second process, it said, was the point system where
admission would depend on the point tally of the
candidate.
The statement said, “JAMB’s provisional admission no
longer makes much sense this year, your points tally
will decide your faith. The points are evenly spread out
between your O’ Level and JAMB results to provide a
level-playing field for all.
“In the first case, any candidate who submits only one
result which contains his/her relevant subjects already
has 10 points. The exam could be NECO, WASSCE,
November/December WASSCE etc, but any candidate
who has two sittings only gets 2 points. So this means
that candidates with only one result are at an advantage
but only just.”
The organisation added that the “next point grades fell
into the O’ Level grades where each grade would have it
equivalent point; A=6 marks, B=4 marks, C=3 marks, so
the better the candidates’ grades, the better his or her
chances of securing admission this year.
“The next point is the UTME scores where each score
range has its equivalent point which can be summarised
thus, 180-200=20-23 marks, 200-250=24-33 points,
251-300=34-43, 300-400=44-60 points,” JAMB explained.
Giving a breakdown, JAMB explained that each category
would contain five JAMB results per point added.
For example a candidate with 180-185 gets 20 points,
while a candidate with 186-190 gets 21 points.
JAMB added that the point system for direct entry would
be released soon.
JAMB stated that fees would still be charged for
screening which would replace the Post UTME test.
JAMB also emphasised that catchment and educationally
less-developed state would still be used for admission
into the nation’s tertiary institutions.
JAMB said, “Merit contains 45 per cent of the total
candidates for a particular course, Catchment contains
35 per cent and ELDS and staff lists contains the rest.
Cut off marks will be released by the institutions this
year in the form of points and not marks.
“If a school declares its cut off mark for Medicine as 90
points and JAMB grants a candidate with 250 a
provisional admission but his/her total points falls short
of the 90 points, then he/she will lose the admission. So
the provisional admission is just a means to an end, not
the end in itself.”
Copyright PUNCH.