Stop giving preferential scores to Northern students, el-Rufai tells JAMB

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.

He stated this on Monday as a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast programme monitored by The PUNCH.

According to the governor, students in the North should not be given lower cut-off marks but the same cut-off marks as their counterparts from other parts of the country for them to be competitive nationally and internationally.

Established in 1978, JAMB is the government agency saddled with the responsibility “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 these institutions”.

Before now, JAMB set cut-off marks across the country but the Board recently cancelled 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.

Schools’ closure: Bandits, terrorists won’t win in Kaduna, says gov

El-Rufai also said the current closure of schools in the state was the major goal of bandits and terrorists oppressing the state but he vowed that they won’t win.

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 to be competitive, not only in the state but globally.

“The schools are closed now because, on the advice of security agencies, they need a couple of months to undertake massive security operations. They are doing that. We are confident that from the next two weeks, we would start the gradual reopening of schools.

“We have moved many of our students in rural areas that we are not sure we can protect to urban schools, thereby increasing the congestion in urban schools that we can protect.”

“The continuous closure of schools is exactly what bandits and Boko Haram want and we are not going to let them win but we must put the safety of our children and teachers first,” the governor noted, adding that the gradual reopening of schools would commence soon.