The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has cancelled the aptitude test for 2024 Direct Entry candidates.

A statement published on its X account on Monday, said other factors will be considered for Direct Entry admissions instead of the test.

“Attention 2024 DE Candidates! This is to inform you that the Board has shelved the conduct of the aptitude test for the year. Other placement criteria shall be considered for your admission while adequate preparation goes into the exercise ahead of next year.”

This is as the Board also said all processes had been put in place for the commencement of admission into the nation’s tertiary institutions.

It also said the 2024 edition of the long-awaited annual policy meeting will be held on Thursday.

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, will chair the 2024 policy meeting, slated for July 18, in Abuja.

The policy meeting will authorise the commencement of this year’s admission.

The bulletin stated published on X said, “This year’s exercise will also feature the National Tertiary Admissions’ Performance-Merit Award, NATAP-M Awards, where the overall winner will receive N500 million, and other consolation winners will share N250 million collectively.

“The policy meeting, usually attended by vice-chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics, monotechnics, and innovation enterprise institutes, provosts of colleges of education, and other critical stakeholders, will consider and approve the guidelines for the 2024 admission exercise.

“The meeting will review the performance of the 2023 admissions exercise and the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME performance of candidates.

“The minimum admission scores, an aggregation of individual institutions’ submissions, will be approved at the meeting.

“This is not a cut-off mark, as often misconstrued, but a minimum score that no institution should go below. The decisions made at the meeting, chaired by the Minister of Education, form the guiding norms for admission and are a collective decision, not solely that of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB.

“No institution is expected to commence the admission process until after the policy meeting, as the guidelines regulating the year’s admission exercise are determined at the meeting with the endorsement of the Minister of Education.

“The meeting declares the commencement of the year’s admission exercise, setting the grand norms, and any institution that violates these collective norms will face sanctions.”