Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, has urged the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to stop giving “preferential scores” to students in Northern Nigeria who sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. For them to stay competitive, both nationally and internationally, students in the North should have the same cut-off marks as their counterparts from other parts of the country.
He stated this on Monday as a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast program monitored by Lamprace.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, is vested with the mandate “to conduct matriculation examinations for entry into all universities polytechnics and colleges of education in the country and to place suitably qualified candidates in the available places in Nigerian institutions.” It was established in 1978.
Before now, JAMB set cut-off marks across Nigeria and awarded preferential scores to candidates from northern Nigeria. Similar preferential scores were awarded to students in the North sitting for the common entrance examinations to secondary schools and unity colleges across Nigeria. Recently, JAMB canceled general cut-off marks for admission into tertiary institutions for the 2021/2022 academic session and gave institutions the freedom to set their individual minimum benchmark for admission.
He said, “The north has always been behind in education, we’ve continuously been the disadvantaged region right from independence even though we’re given preferences, JAMB scores, and all that. That has not helped, in fact, it has made our people lazy.
“Against this differential JAMB and FG (Federal Government) scores, I think people should be encouraged to work hard and compete and we are prepared to make our children in Kaduna State be competitive, not only in the state but globally.”
Speaking on banditry in the state, Governor Rufa’i stated that the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies are overwhelmed, hence, the need to train hundreds of vigilantes who will bear arms and confront the marauders who operate from the forests of Kaduna.
