The Education Minister Prof Tahir Mamman, has made a U-turn in his earlier statement, where he directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, to admit only candidates who have attained 18 years in tertiary institutions.

Mamman on Thursday, in an ongoing policy meeting organised by JAMB, in Abuja, announced that only applicants who were 18 years and above were eligible for admission.

Stakeholders in the meeting kicked against his statement, noting that its illogical for a 16-year-old student to pass WAEC, JAMB and be denied admission.

Reacting,  the minister later accepted the suggestions of the stakeholders that from 16 years and above should be eligible for this year’s admission, while the law would apply from next year.

In a related development, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has approved 140 as the cut-off mark for 2024 admission into the nation’s universities and 100 for polytechnics and colleges of education.

The National Minimum Tolerable UTME Score (NTMUS), popularly known as the cut-off mark, for 2024 admission into tertiary institutions was arrived at on Thursday during the 2024 annual policy meeting on admissions, which was held at the Body Benchers, Headquarters, Abuja.

The meeting was held following the successful conduct of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). A total of 1,989,668 registered candidates for this year’s UTME.

Out of the 1,989,668 registered candidates, 80,810 were absent while a total of 1,904,189 sat for the UTME within the six days of the examination.

Registrar of JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, who announced the cutoff marks, explained that individual institutions were at liberty to raise their minimum benchmark approved at the policy meeting but could not go below what was approved for various institutions.