The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has reaffirmed that the minimum age for admission into Nigeria’s tertiary institutions remains 16 years.
Naijaonpoint reports that this declaration was made during the 2025 Policy Meeting on Admissions, held on Tuesday at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja, where top officials from universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education gathered to deliberate on guidelines for the new academic session.
Speaking at the event, the Board disclosed that the age requirement is enforced via the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) and even accommodates candidates who will turn 16 by August 31, 2025.
However, JAMB expressed concern over what it described as “illegal backdoor admissions” conducted by some institutions.
JAMB said in a statement issued at the meeting, “The Board implemented the 16-year admissible age on its CAPS platform and even bent backwards to accommodate candidates who would be 16 as of 31st August 2025.
“However, some institutions admitted candidates who were not up to the admissible age of 16 outside CAPS and even collected huge sums of money from them as tuition fees.”
JAMB warned that such admissions were null and void, stressing that candidates admitted through these unauthorised routes would not be recognised within the CAPS framework. The Board also revealed that some of the affected cases had resulted in lawsuits against the institutions involved.
In a major development aimed at curbing the spread of falsified Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scores and discouraging the undue celebration of raw results, JAMB announced that candidates’ national rankings would now be reflected on their result slips starting from 2025.
“To curb the menace of celebrating top scorers of UTME, candidates’ ranking (position) will be indicated on the result slip for each candidate,” JAMB stated.
The Board believes that this change will enable institutions to assess applicants in relation to their peers more effectively and provide candidates and guardians with a clearer understanding of academic performance.
JAMB also shared insightful data from the 2025 UTME to illustrate the rankings system. Out of 1,905,539 registered candidates:
A score of 370 was ranked 16th;
320 was ranked 5,806th;
250 was ranked 107,819th;
200 was ranked 533,805th;
180 was ranked 948,025th;
140 was ranked 1,855,607th;
120 was ranked 1,900,872nd;
100 was ranked 1,903,661st.
According to the Board, this will discourage the manipulation of scores and aid institutions in their admission decisions.
Addressing calls to extend the validity of UTME results beyond one year, the Board pushed back, arguing that score comparability across multiple years could present significant challenges to the integrity of the admission process.
JAMB reiterated its commitment to upholding fairness, merit, and transparency in Nigeria’s tertiary admission system.
The 2025 Policy Meeting is expected to conclude with the approval of minimum cut-off marks and new regulatory guidelines for the upcoming academic session.