No fewer than 1,300,000 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination candidates may lose their admission into universities and polytechnics in 2020 over the delay in the Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the category of candidates who used awaiting results to sit the 2020 UTME, which held between March 14 and March 22 – a few weeks into the COVID-19 crisis.

According to PUNCH, Both the West African Examinations Council and the National Examinations Council, which should have conducted their examinations in April and May 2020, have yet to do so due to schools closure since March due to COVID-19.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board at its policy meeting with heads of tertiary institutions in the country on Tuesday announced 120 and 160 cut-off marks for admission into polytechnics and universities respectively for the 2020/2021 academic session.

It also said admission processes would begin in August 2020, with candidates who already had their o’Level results.

The JAMB Registrar, Prof Is-haq Oloyede, noted that candidates who used awaiting results would only be considered when the results were uploaded on the board’s website.

From the JAMB Policy Guidelines presentation by Oloyede, obtained by our correspondent, the figures of awaiting results candidates, who, however, met the cut-offs for universities and polytechnics are over 1.3 million.

Yet the inability of WAEC and NECO to hold their SSCE as a result of the closure of schools may likely jeopardise the admission chances of the UTME candidates, our correspondent learnt.

On page 144 of the presentation, the registrar said,

“On the 2020 UTME cumulative performance statistics, 1,889,801 candidates got 120 and above; the total number of candidates with Ordinary Level results uploaded are 536,813 while 1,352,988 are candidates with awaiting results.

“Of the 1,889,801, a total number of 1,329,289 got 160 and above; of the 1,329,289, a total number of 398,984 candidates uploaded their o’Level results and 930,305 is the number of candidates awaiting results.

“No admission can be initiated from JAMB; it must come from the institutions using the Central Admission Processing System process. In this process, the institution’s Admission Officer proposes a candidate; then, the Head of Institution recommends the candidate; furthermore, the JAMB Desk Officer approves recommendation and finally, the candidate accepts or rejects.

“After the uploading of o’Level by a candidate, any admission to be done must consider him or her. If any institution requests for opening of change for programme or institution, it must consider all the candidates who have uploaded.”

The board instructed institutions to notify it if they were having “COVID-19 — induced delay or no Ordinary Level results from many candidates.”