The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has approved 150 as the minimum benchmark score for admission into Nigerian universities for the 2025 academic session.
The decision was reached on Monday during the board’s annual policy meeting on admissions into tertiary institutions held in Abuja, where key stakeholders in the education sector deliberated on admission guidelines for the new session.
The benchmark, officially referred to as the National Minimum Tolerable UTME Score, implies that universities across the country are prohibited from offering admission to candidates who score below 150 in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
Despite the approved threshold, individual institutions retain the authority to fix higher cut-off marks depending on their admission policies and level of competition.
The meeting, attended by vice-chancellors, rectors, provosts and other heads of tertiary institutions, also reviewed admission standards for polytechnics and colleges of education.
Last year, the minimum benchmark for university admissions was equally pegged at 150, while polytechnics and colleges of education adopted 100 as their minimum scores.
The approved benchmarks followed extensive deliberations and voting by stakeholders at the policy meeting.
The development comes amid ongoing reforms in the education sector aimed at improving standards and streamlining the admission process into tertiary institutions nationwide.
More details are expected to emerge from the meeting.