Lagos State Government has said Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates who scored below 185 will not be offered admission in any of its three state-owned universities.

The state Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Tolani Sule, stated this on Wednesday during a ministerial press briefing at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, Alausa, to mark the third anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s second term in office.

Mr Sule rejected the pegging of minimum cut-off mark to 150 by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), describing it as too low.

Mr Sule said, “To us in Lagos State, the cut-off marks approved by JAMB look too low for our universities. None of our three universities is admitting any student who scored below 185 in the UTME.

“For JAMB to announce 150 as the cut-off mark out of the 400 obtainable marks in the UTME for this year’s admission seekers is very low. Lagos cannot be considered educationally disadvantaged to the extent of bringing its cut-off mark down to meet what Sokoto or Zamfara states require.”

Mr Sule said state government would keep investing in education infrastructure and increase access to tertiary education without compromising standards rather than lower education standards of universities run by the state.

He stated that universities run by the state recently increased from one to three in order to improve access to higher education in the state.

He said, “Increasing our universities from one to three is still part of what the state governor is doing to provide more educational platforms and opportunities for Lagos residents. And increasing the number to four is still part of this effort by the state government to give all admission seekers the opportunity to get tertiary education in Lagos.”

He added that Mr Sanwo-Olu’s government was working with the ministry of health on a legislation for the establishment of a University of Medicine and Health Sciences.