The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), says the 2020 Policy Meeting of tertiary institutions will be held online on June 16, 2020.

The exam body disclosed this in its weekly bulletin on Monday in Abuja.

According to JAMB, the policy meeting which would be chaired by the Minister of Education with all Heads of Tertiary Institutions in attendance, would be streamed live on the Board’s website; www.jamb.gov.ng, its face book, JAMBulletin and other social media platforms”.

It noted that the meeting is peculiar as it will go down history as the first that will hold online owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The meeting will discuss critical issues bordering on the advances made in the educational sector in the last one year in addition to setting the tone for the 2020/2021 Admission exercise”.

“The meeting will also chart policy directions for the nation’s tertiary institutions, set admission guidelines and make a holistic review of application statistics, performance as well as evaluate the 2019 admissions exercise”.

“The meeting, in addition to other deliberations, would take a stand on concessional and acceptable minimum admissions standards to be applied in all admissions to be undertaken by all tertiary institutions in Nigeria”.

“It would be recalled that part of the protocols put in place by government to curb the spread of COVID-19 requires that no gathering of persons exceeds prescribed number”.

“Compliance with this directive has become imperative as no fewer than 4000 Heads of Tertiary Institutions comprising Degree, Diploma, NCE and NID-awarding institutions and other stakeholders would normally be expected to congregate at a location but because of extant protocols, would now be expected to participate in the virtual meeting”.

“The modalities for the meeting would entail the board issuing only one access code to each participating institution to join the meeting. This access code is not to be shared or given to unauthorised persons.

“However, other critical stakeholders within the institutions like the Registrars, Admissions Officers can cluster around a big screen in a location to attend the meeting using the unique access code,” the exam body said.

JAMB further noted that the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, would preside over the meeting with other stakeholders and top functionaries in the ministry joining in from their operational points.

It added that heads of regulatory agencies and other critical stakeholders like chairmen of committees on Education at the lower and upper chambers of the National Assembly were also expected to join the meeting.