FG Scraps UTME for NCE Admissions

Candidates seeking admission into Nigeria Certificate in Education programmes in colleges of education across the country will no longer be required to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the federal government announced on Monday.

Minister of Education Tunji Alausa made the disclosure during the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s 2026 policy meeting held in Abuja, marking a significant shift in how the country regulates access to teacher education at the certificate level.

Under the new guidelines announced by the minister, prospective NCE students will only need a minimum of four O level credits in their school certificate results to qualify for admission into any accredited college of education. The UTME, which has historically served as a compulsory entry requirement across virtually all tertiary institutions in Nigeria, will no longer apply to this category of applicants.

Alausa stated that the policy adjustment is designed to ease the administrative burden on JAMB, which manages the examination for hundreds of thousands of candidates annually. The ministry has not indicated whether the change will extend to other categories of tertiary education admissions.

The decision draws attention to the longstanding debate around NCE programmes and their place within Nigeria’s broader tertiary education framework. Colleges of education in Nigeria are regulated by the National Commission for Colleges of Education, and their programmes have often been treated differently from university and polytechnic admissions, though the UTME requirement had remained a standard feature across the board.

The NCE is the minimum professional qualification recognised for teaching at the basic education level in Nigeria. The National Teachers Council and successive education policy frameworks have consistently emphasised the need to increase qualified teacher supply, particularly at the primary and junior secondary levels where teacher shortages remain severe in several states.

Removing the UTME requirement from the NCE admission process is likely to expand the pool of eligible candidates, particularly in rural and underserved areas where students may have limited preparation resources for the centralised examination. However, education watchers may raise questions about whether minimum standards in teacher training could be affected if entry requirements are significantly reduced beyond O level credits.

JAMB, which has faced growing operational challenges in recent years amid increasing candidacy numbers, has not yet issued an independent statement detailing how the new policy will be operationalised or what transition arrangements will apply for candidates already registered for the current cycle.

The policy announcement came against the backdrop of wider scrutiny surrounding JAMB’s administration. Earlier this year, the board publicly disowned a circulating result slip purportedly showing a score of 394 in the 2026 UTME, describing it as fake and warning members of the public against document fraud.

Further clarity on the implementation timeline, eligible institutions, and monitoring frameworks for the new NCE admission pathway is expected from the Ministry of Education and relevant regulatory bodies in the coming weeks.