Nigerian students in the arts and humanities streams at the senior secondary school level will no longer be required to obtain a credit pass in Mathematics in the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) as a prerequisite for admission into universities and polytechnics.
This new policy, announced on Tuesday by the Federal Ministry of Education, applies to examinations conducted by both the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).
For decades, candidates seeking admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria—regardless of their field of study—were required to have at least five credits, including English Language and Mathematics, before they could be considered for admission.
This blanket rule often posed challenges for students pursuing disciplines in the arts and humanities who struggled with Mathematics despite excelling in their core subjects.
According to the Ministry, the decision forms part of the newly approved “National Guidelines for Entry Requirements into Nigerian Tertiary Institutions.” The document seeks to remove unnecessary barriers to access higher education while maintaining academic standards across all levels.
Under the revised framework, the new policy will apply to universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and Innovation Enterprise Institutes nationwide.
The Ministry explained that the reform aims to align Nigeria’s admission policies with international best practices and to ensure that students are assessed based on the relevance of their subjects to their chosen fields of study, rather than a one-size-fits-all model.
