Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has released the guidelines for 2020 admission exercise, encouraging institutions to strictly comply with the guidelines for a successful 2020 admission exercise. 
The document which has, apparently, been dispatched to institutions, went with an appeal from JAMB to heads of institutions and admission officers to carefully study and understand the content of the document, with a view to implementing it fully for a seamless and transparent admission exercise.
JAMB said the guidelines are expected to guide all participants in admission process, even as it explained the nitty-gritty of the processes of admission of candidates into the tertiary institutions.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, in a letter addressed to Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Provosts, solicited their usual cooperation and understanding, stressing the strategic importance of the guidelines to the success of the 2020 admission exercise.
Oloyede referred the institutions to the decisions taken at the 2020 Policy Meeting on admission exercise, as well as other policy directives as contained in the address of the Minister of Education.
He asked them to ensure total compliance with the guidelines, insisting that sanctions shall be fully applied to institutions that violate the decisions.
JAMB Registrar, in the letter addressed to the institutions, insisted that admission exercise for the 2020/2021 academic session would be conducted on Central Admission Processing System (CAPS), and no institution is allowed to publish, announce, exhibit or paste any name(s) of admitted candidate without prior approval of the name on CAPS.
He confirmed JAMB Registrar (Chairman), Heads of Tertiary Institutions; Director of Admissions (JAMB) Admission Officers of Tertiary Institutions; JAMB Desk Officers; and Candidates as principal participants in the admission process.
He also confirmed that 1st and 2nd Choices Admission-Exercise will be conducted for all institutions from 21st August, 2020, to a later date that would be determined by the Federal Ministry of Education and communicated to all the institutions.
Meanwhile, JAMB said the guideline document touched on required academic qualifications for admission, admissions quota as prescribed by the regulatory bodies; UTME brochure as published and on IBASS; guidelines on admissions as prescribed by the institutions’ Proprietors (Federal, State and Private); and policy decisions on 2020 admissions exercise.
The document advised candidates who desire to upgrade to Direct Entry (DE) from UTME, to logs into his/her profile, choose upgrade and complete the process at no cost. It added that the platform allows the candidate to also change programme or/and institution at no cost.
“Once it’s done, ‘U’ is automatically added to original registration number and the uploaded result is automatically made available to the institution through CAPS. The upgrade can be done before or after Post-UTME but the candidate must notify the institution in order to update their download list from CAPS,” it noted.
Regarding the procedure for admission exercise, JAMB advised institutions to recommend candidates for admission after having presented to the Board, the approved general quota for each institution and the distribution to the various programmes; minimum UTME score for each programme; minimum DE qualification grades for DE candidates; components of cut-off marks and the allotted score for each component; the cut-off date for the 1st and 2nd choice admissions after which no result upload nor change of Institution as 1st Choice would be allowed among several others in accordance with the guideline document.
JAMB, however, said that for a candidate to be registered in an institution from 2020 admissions exercise, such candidate must have been recommended by the institution; been approved and admitted by JAMB; accepted the offer online on JAMB’s website at no cost; printed both Result Slip and Admission Letter directly from JAMB’s website; and must have been screened and must have presented acceptable credentials.