FG scraps UTME requirement for students seeking NCE and agriculture admissions

• The Federal Government has removed UTME as a requirement for admission into Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) and Agriculture non- engineering programmes.

• Prospective students in this category will now only need at least four O-level credits to gain admission into colleges of education.

• The policy is intended to ease pressure on JAMB as UTME candidate numbers continue to rise yearly.

The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, announced the policy change on Monday during JAMB's 2026 policy meeting in Abuja. Under the new guidelines, candidates will only need a minimum of four O-level credits in their school certificate to qualify for admission into NCE programmes.

The exemption extends beyond education. Candidates seeking admission into agriculture non-engineering courses will also no longer be required to sit the UTME under the new guidelines.

The decision is aimed at reducing the administrative burden on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, which this year processed over 2.2 million candidates for the 2026 UTME, a 10.5 per cent increase from the 2.03 million who sat the examination in 2025. 

That figure, growing year on year, has placed considerable strain on the board's logistics, infrastructure, and oversight capacity. Removing NCE-bound and agriculture non-engineering candidates from that pipeline is a practical step toward managing that load.

The NCE, awarded by colleges of education across Nigeria, is a professional teaching qualification. It is a three-year programme designed primarily to train teachers for primary and junior secondary schools, and has long served as a key entry point into the education workforce for students who may not be pursuing a full university degree. 

For many of these students, the requirement to sit the UTME, an examination largely designed for university admission, has been an added layer of bureaucracy with limited relevance to their intended path.

The change means that for NCE and agriculture non-engineering applicants, the process now mirrors the entry requirements already in place for other non-degree tertiary programmes, where O-level results remain the primary benchmark for eligibility.

JAMB has not yet issued additional guidance on how the new admissions process will be administered for these candidates, including what role, if any, the board will play in coordinating placements into colleges of education going forward.

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