As preparations gather pace for the 2027 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), a policy think tank has called on the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to publish data on admission trends and access gaps in tertiary education. Higher education policy think tank iRead To Live Initiative called on JAMB, under newly appointed Registrar Segun Aina, to publish comprehensive data on tertiary admissions and candidate performance ahead of the 2027 UTME cycle.
The group made the demand in its inaugural policy brief, titled The Admissions Gap: Who Gets into Nigeria’s Tertiary Institutions, and Why It Matters, released in August 2026. The initiative urged Aina to release admissions and performance data in an aggregated, anonymised, and machine-readable format to enable policymakers, institutions, and independent researchers to pinpoint structural access barriers.
Think Tank Calls for Granular Admissions Data and Cut-Off Evidence
According to the initiative, data should be disaggregated by state, local government area, geopolitical zone, gender, subject, and institution, backed by precise definitions. iRead To Live Initiative Executive Director Jacob Sule stated that greater transparency in admissions data would help the country pinpoint where higher education barriers concentrate.
