Seven Nigerian tertiary institutions on Thursday received N750 million in prizes awarded by the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board’s (JAMB) National Tertiary Admissions Performance Merit Award (NATAP-M).
The institutions were rewarded for strict compliance with JAMB’s admission guidelines.
The winners –three universities, a polytechnic, a college of education and an innovation enterprise institution– were presented with dummy cheques during the award ceremony shortly after the 2024 policy meeting on admissions into tertiary institutions, also convened by JAMB in Abuja on Thursday.
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According to the JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, the award initiated in 2018 was to recognise tertiary institutions complying with the admission guidelines and spur healthy competition among the institutions in that regard.
JAMB’s Director of Admissions, Mohammed Babaji, noted that the agency has recorded significant improvement in compliance since it started incentivising compliance with the annual prizes.
Criteria for Winning
Mr Oloyede listed four categories of the awards, including three sectoral awards for polytechnics, colleges of education and innovation enterprise institutions (IEI), and the overall winner category.
Oloyede said the overall winner would earn a N500 million cash prize while the first and second runner-ups get N75 million and N25 million, respectively.
He announced that the board would present N50 million each to the best polytechnic and college of education and N10 million for the IEI.
The Registrar explained, however, that the institutions are only eligible for the ‘overall winner’ prize of N500 million once in five years.
In a situation where the same institution wins for the second time within five years, such an institution will only receive a ‘nominal’ winning prize of N40 million.
The runner-up for that year will then receive the N500 million cash prize.
“To curtail serial winning by an institution, any winner-institution of the award can only be given nominal award within five years of full overall winning of the award,” he said.
The JAMB registrar explained that the board used five metrics to rank the institutions before arriving at the winners for the categories of awards.
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The metrics include the best in compliance with the policy guidelines, the most subscribed institution by candidates, the highest in number of admitted international students, the most improved in gender balance over the previous year in intake of students and the most national in admission of candidates, which refers to the institutions with the most equal distribution of admitted students from Nigeria’s 36 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).
Winners
The University of Ilorin, Kwara State, emerged as the overall winner, with a N500 million cash prize. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, emerged second with N75 million cash prize and Borno State University, Maiduguri, Borno State, came in the third position with N25 million cash prize.
In the sectorial award for polytechnics, the Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna, Kaduna State, emerged winner with N50 million. The first and second runners-up in the category, Nigerian Navy School of Health Science, Offa, Kwara State and Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa, Oyo State, are not entitled to cash prizes.
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For the college of education, the Federal College of Education, Zaria, Kaduna State, emerged as the sectoral winner with N50 million cash prize. Federal College of Education (Special) Oyo, Oyo State and Federal College of Education (Tech) Gombe, Gombe State, emerged as first and second runners-up, respectively.
In the IEI sectoral category, Pefti Film Institute, Lagos, Lagos State, emerged winner with a N10 million cash prize. The first and second runners-up are Industrial Training Fund Models Skills Training Centre, Maitama, Abuja, FCT and Global Maritime Academy, Ogoni-Olomu, Ughelli South, Delta State.
