The immediate past President of Chartered Institute of Banker of Nigeria (CIBN), Professor Segun Ajibola, says the reduction in the cut-off marks for admissions into tertiary institutions by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board will not affect the quality of the country’s graduates.
JAMB had recently announced 160 as the cut-off mark for admission into Nigerian universities for the 2020/2021 academic session, 120 for polytechnics while the minimum benchmark for colleges of education and other innovative institutions was put at 100.
In an interview with SaharaReporters, the professor described the move as a good one saying the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination should not be used to judge how students would perform in tertiary institutions.
He added that the reduction would create rooms for many students to be admitted into universities and other institutions in the country.
He said: “Cut-off marks, at times, is an indication of your capacity and it is not all. We have seen people who got very low marks at JAMB and got to university and excelled and vice versa.
“I think what JAMB is doing is to provide an opportunity for as many as possible and as much as the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education have the capacity.
“We have so much of the population coming out of secondary schools, many of them are seeking to go to higher institutions.
“For whatever reason or the other, they may not score high marks in the JAMB exam, that does not mean they will not do well when they get to higher institutions.”
Commenting on the quality of education in the country, Prof Ajibola urged tertiary institutions to improve the quality of education they dispense to students.
“The quality resides in the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education not in what score you made in UTME,” he added.
