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2026 JAMB Admission Scores

The internet is currently buzzing owing to the decisions reached at this year's JAMB policy meeting, especially on the minimum (not cut-off mark) approved scores for institutions. The general concern is about the standard of our education sector and its ability to produce quality future representatives.

I understand the concern and the role JAMB should play in all of these. However, as someone who has witnessed the process for two consecutive years, let me explain to clearly how these scores are discussed, agreed and stamped.

Take for example that you are the leader of a market with different men and women seeking for customers to patronize them but to ensure efficacy and transparency, you asked all the marketers selling beans to set a minimum admissible price (you can go below but can go higher) and their collective decisions are agreed and sealed.

JAMB is the market leader that asked the institutions (universities, polytechnic/monotechnic, CoE, etc) to set their respective minimum scores. They suggested, deliberated and voted for/against and finally agreed. So, JAMB is not the one setting the scores but institutions.

However, there's a twist!!!

The minimum scores announced are not the ultimate or binding on any institution because they are empowered to set scores above (not below) depending on the available courses. This is the reason your 200 might not get you into your desired course of study.

So, don't celebrate, rather brace up and check for entry scores into the course you apply for/to in that your prestigious institution or start thinking of change of course and Institution.

I recently watched Sir Ken Robinson talked about a Death Valley (the hottest & dryest place) in America. He explained that nothing grows there because it doesn’t rain. But in the winter of 2004, it experienced a 7-inch of rain over a short period and in the spring of 2005, the whole floor of Death Valley was covered in flowers. He concluded that this phenomenon signified that there are possibilities beneath the surface waiting for the right moment to sprout.

He related this scenario to our school system, especially our learners who are not dead-brained but dormant and just waiting for the right climate of opportunity to manifest. However, one major factor in these range of opportunities are the teachers.

Nations are not built in parliaments alone. They are built quietly -lesson by lesson, question by question- in classrooms but we often underestimate.

There are teachers who “finished the syllabus” right on time but left students at the exact spot they met them. And I have met teachers who didn’t finish everything on paper yet raised learners who could reason, question authority and imagine solutions for their communities.
The difference is simple: one followed the schedule while the other shaped a citizen.
When teaching is reduced to content coverage, we produce graduates who can pass exams but struggle with empathy, leadership and civic courage.

I sincerely understand, teaching is increasingly becoming a calling many are rejecting, especially in this part of the world but for some of us that have signed the righteous contract and picked the name “Teacher(s)”, we need far more than transfer knowledge.

We have to:
🩵 model values
💙 shape attitudes
💚 teach how to disagree respectfully
💛 show what responsibility looks like

That is nation-building work. And these are ways to build that nation we strongly are in need of.

Check the image!!!

EXPLORE HOW TO RAISE A GENERATION OF READERS

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