The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that all necessary preparations have been made for the commencement of admissions into the nation’s tertiary institutions.

Additionally, the 2024 edition of the annual policy meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday.

This information was disclosed in the board’s weekly news bulletin, published on Monday.

According to the bulletin, the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, will preside over the 2024 policy meeting, set for July 18 in Abuja.

This policy meeting will officially authorize the start of this year’s admission process.

The bulletin also highlighted an important feature of this year’s exercise:

“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.”

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) also announced the cancellation of the aptitude test for 2024 Direct Entry (DE) candidates.

This decision was communicated via JAMB’s official X account on Monday.

“Attention 2024 DE Candidates! This is to inform you that the Board has shelved the conduct of 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,” JAMB posted.

The Board’s decision to cancel the aptitude test for this year means that alternative placement criteria will be used to determine the admission of DE candidates.