The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) says candidates seeking admission into education courses and non-engineering agriculture programmes will no longer be required to sit the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
The examination body announced the decision in a post published on its official X handle on Monday during its ongoing policy meeting on admissions.
“Candidates seeking admissions into Education Programmes and Agriculture non-Engineering Courses are now exempted from UTME,” the board stated.
The decision signals a major adjustment to Nigeria’s tertiary admission system as the UTME has long remained the primary qualifying examination for admission into universities, polytechnics and colleges of education nationwide.
JAMB’s annual policy meeting is convened to determine admission guidelines for tertiary institutions, including cut-off marks and other admission procedures.
Although exemptions from the UTME already exist for direct entry applicants and a few special categories of candidates, the latest development is regarded as one of the widest concessions introduced by the board in recent years.
The new policy is expected to impact candidates applying for education and non-engineering agriculture courses by opening up alternative admission routes through institutional screening processes and other qualifications.
In recent years, education and agriculture courses have typically recorded lower cut-off marks compared to competitive programmes such as medicine, law and engineering.
