The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has declared that with effect from this year (2017), candidates awaiting results would no longer be eligible to apply for the Universities Tertiary Matriculation Examination, (UTME).
Literally, it means candidates must sit and obtain the results of either West African Examination Council school examination, WAEC, or National Examination Council, NECO, before admission.
This disclosure was made in a statement issued by its spokesman, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, in Abuja on Tuesday, February 28, 2017.
According to him, the apex exam body had concluded all restructuring and reforms and is now set to commence the sale of its application document in March.
JAMB also introduced a fourth choice of school, but said candidates can apply to only one government-owned university.
The restructuring exercise will now allow for only one choice of public university in which new registration platform will now be first choice, second choice, third choice and fourth choice and not most preferred, preferred choice.
According to him, the restructuring was aimed at expanding the opportunities available to candidates since almost all the public universities do not consider candidates on the second choice list because they hardly exhaust their first choice.
He said, “The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has concluded all restructuring, transformation, reforms and other preparation for the 2017 UTME and is now set to commence the sale of its application document in March, 2017.
“We have designed a Central Admissions Processing System where the Board will interface with the institutions and ensure the compliance of this reform. The summary is that no candidate will be admitted with awaiting result.
“Candidates and their parents are also to note that JAMB has restructured the registration platform to allow for only one choice of public university. The new registration platform will now be first choice, second choice, third choice and fourth choice and not most preferred, preferred etc as it was.
“Candidates’ first choice can be a College, University, Innovative Enterprises Institutions or Polytechnic/Monotechnic. However, if a candidate makes a Public University his first choice, he will not have any public University to choose for second, third and fourth choice. He will have on the remaining three choices, a College, Polytechnic, Private University and IEI’S. However, candidates for the 2017 UTME can now select National Certificate in Education (College) or National Diploma (Polytechnic/Monotechnic) as their first choice up to third choice and the fourth IEI. They can select the IEI (Innovative Enterprise Institution, ND) as their first choice up to the fourth choice, but can only pick a public university once.”
DJ SYRAX 