Again,the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board,JAMB,has said it would not offer admission to candidates below the age of 16 years in its 2024/2025 admission session.
The board which vowed to enforce the directive of the Minister of Education,Prof. Tahir Mamman that candidates below the age of 16 should not be admitted into tertiary institutions, especially universities,advised candidates below the required age not to think of admission this year.
This is as the board noted that in the 2025 admission session, only candidates that attained the age of 18 would be considered for admission in line with the directive of the minister during the 2024 National Policy Meeting.
The board reiterated its position at a press conference at its national headquarters,in Bwari,Abuja on Sunday.
Speaking on behalf of the registrar,Prof. Ishaq Oloyede,JAMB’s Public Communication Advisor,Fabian Benjamin,said:”For the 2024 admission cycle, candidates who will be at least 16 years old at the time of admission will be considered eligible.
”This decision follows the directive from the Chairman of the 2024 tertiary admission policy meeting, who is also the Honourable Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, SAN, that the extant policy of 6-3-3-4 be enforced only from 2025 session.”
According to him,”The alarming avalanche of obviously false affidavits and upsurge of doctored upward age-adjustments on NIN slips being submitted to JAMB to upgrade recorded age is dangerous, inimical and unnecessary.”
”Only those below 16 would not and should not be admitted in accordance with the decision of the 2024 Policy Meeting,”he added.
He also said the board “will no longer entertain absorption of illegal admissions through the window of Condonement of Illegal Admissions without Registration number”.
He spoke further:”This window which is used to absorb, for the candidates’ sake, illegal admissions that were conducted prior to 2017. It would be recalled that CAPS was introduced,in 2017 to ensure accuracy, records, transparency, accountability, fairness, and equity in admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
The window (for mop-up of pre 2017 unofficial/unregistered admission) has been on now for 7 years and it is now being abused.
“The Board’s position is informed by the discovery of widespread and unwholesome practice whereby some institutions were colluding with candidates to falsify vital details, such as, backdated year of entry and subsequent age-adjustments, to utilise certificates of genuine candidates with similar names to facilitate illegal admissions to enable participation of fake candidates in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
“Recent worse discoveries made it imperative for the Board to speak out to save the integrity of the education system.
In the same vein, the attention of the Board has also been drawn to the predilection of some institutions to admit candidates outside the approved Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) platform and process such through the condonement of illegal admissions window to accord legitimacy. “
Fabian explained that in order to close this abused window, the Board has decided that,”All institutions should now (or never) disclose all candidates illegally- admitted prior to 2017 whose records are in their system within the next one month beginning from 1st August, 2024; and any admission purportedly given prior to 2017 will no longer be recognised or condoned unless disclosed within this one-month window.”
