How many marks is an under-16 candidate taking JAMB allowed to miss?
Since the total score any applicant can get writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination is 400 marks, any underaged trying their luck with the exam can only miss eight of the questions.
The demands placed on the daily lives of the workers running bureaucracies and enabling federal or state governments to function will only get more intense in Nigeria currently undergoing a reawakening driven by artificial intelligence. Therefore, the body that organises entrance examinations into tertiary learning institutions says standards have to remain high, even for an under-16 candidate fresh from secondary school and trying to gain admission into one of the country’s universities.
Every higher learning institution in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, has its capacity in terms of the number of entries it can accommodate over two semesters. Certain cut-off marks must have been approved by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (J.A.M.B), points which the fresh high school applicants converging in their large volume and trying to get in for a degree programme just have to meet.
One benefit of setting this bar is to make sure the population of a university community is conducive and fit for purpose.
If an under-aged candidate that is possibly still in secondary school fancies their chances at breaking records via an early JAMB-screened admission into a desired school, the Board’s Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede said all is fair as long as the applicant under discussion can guarantee a score of up to 80 percent in their exams. It is the only way outside of meeting the minimum age requirement of clocking 16 first before attempting.
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Since the total score any applicant can get writing JAMB is 400 marks, any under-16 trying their luck with the exam can only miss eight of the questions, according to Prof. Oloyede at a town hall with stakeholders preparing for the event.
They get a pass with the imminent 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) running from Friday 25 April and the next 10 days after that but starting from September, these special candidates must buckle up.
Broken down, the total 400 marks they are trying their hands on mean simply a hundred questions per subject and candidates are needed to choose four out of several others, making sure they match with their secondary school background and higher learning pursuits.
If you take UTME, for instance, and you score 200 out of 400, how do you call yourself an exceptional candidate? asks the registrar rhetorically. But if you score 80 percent, that is giving us a signal that ‘Oh, this person is really exceptional.
Making sure the rules of admission aren’t infringed on and also that any course of study initiated in a university begins based on merit, is why the Board wants to get stricter starting from September. They must be exceptional not through mere words but in all ramifications such that either in the UTME, WAEC, Post-UTME, or the GCE O/level, he must score at least 80 percent.
The applicants trying to write JAMB are mostly within the range that assumes they started primary school learning at the age of four at least, having in mind that they go through six years each of primary and secondary school learning. That is certainly the standard the admission body wants and is committed to maintaining the structure, says the Registrar.
It corresponds with general reforms going on within the education system at the federal level. Under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, there seems to be a yearning within the setup to make sure every wheel stays turning, especially the whole cadres of learning, not just universities.
Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.
