The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has reacted to a claim by the governor of Kaduna state, Malam Nasir el-Rufai that it gives preferential cut-off marks for students from the Northern region of the country.
el-Rufai had during his appearance on Channels TV programme, Sunrise Daily said; “The north has always been behind in education, we’ve continuously been the disadvantaged region right from independence even though we’re given preferences, JAMB scores and all that. That has not helped, in fact, it has made our people lazy.
“Against this differential JAMB and FG (Federal Government) scores, I think people should be encouraged to work hard and compete and we are prepared to make our children in Kaduna State to be competitive, not only in the state but globally”.
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Reacting, JAMB’s Head of Information and Media, Fabian Benjamin, told The PUNCH that, “We don’t give preferential or differential cut-off marks to candidates.
“Candidates are admitted on the scores as defined by institutions. As for the UTME, they sit for the examination and it is what they obtain that is the basis for their selection after the policy meeting has authorised the commencement of admission.
“There are no preferential cut-off marks for anybody. What people refer to as the cut-off mark is the minimum score and each institution sets its own minimum score; it is a function of performance in the UTME for the year, subscription to programmes and institutions that is how many candidates have applied to the institutions or for the programmes.
“These are what push the minimum score either up or down for institutions or programmes.
“The determining factor is the subscription to a particular programme or school. If the subscription is very low, technically, it will affect the minimum score for the programme.”
