So JAMB can’t cut-off marks again?

With my intervention last week on some of the issues we have in our educational system, especially in relation to what we call federal universities, I never reckoned that it will attract some kind of attention not to talk of the deluge I witnessed. In all, what was more important to me was not even the posers that were raised regarding what I titled “Why is it called federal university?” but more crucial were the questions some of the readers of this column asked of me regarding the place of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) at times like this. The scrutiny of JAMB became even pronounced following that body’s policy reversals in the last one week and even so regarding wild protestations at the University of Lagos, a federal university. I was later to read some reports that these protestations happened across the nation in other universities too.

What were the protests about? Simple! Applicants and their parents who desired university education were having difficulties accessing internet portals were these hapless students could access what is called post-JAMB tests. The tests are administered by individual universities to would-be students to ascertain their intellectual suitability for the courses they may have chosen during JAMB’s examination. The worst was to come from JAMB itself. As if the confusion about some of the issues I pointed out last week were not enough, especially with regards to cut-off marks and other pedestrian considerations like catchment area or educationally advantaged states, the board through its chief executive officer, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, argued that applicants and their parents will continue to encounter matriculation/cut-off problems so long as post-UTME is not conducted by JAMB.

I mean I find this statement by Prof. Ojerinde as banal. The problems we have already regarding our admission system is caused by JAMB. That body’s sloppiness and perennial porous examination template was what led to post-UTME in the first place. It was so bad that persons who scored 350 over 400 during JAMB’s fraudulent examinations could not score 50 marks over 200 during post-UTME. Nobody took that board serious anywhere. JAMB was a mess and questions were asked about why they will colonise admission examinations in the country for what ever reasons. It was the outrage that greeted the fraud with JAMB that gave rise to post-UME examinations until even these so called universities began to abuse it.

Post-UME became a money making machine. Before long, fraudulent practices bedevilled the post-UME too. People were admitted without passing the examination. Some others were admitted without even sitting for the examination. Worst, some persons who the universities claimed met their own cut-off marks again failed to even access or register for post-UME. This was the situation that gave rise to the crisis in UNILAG. Very many candidates who met the 250 cut-off mark set by that university were not allowed to register for the examination. This put the candidates in quandary. While you hear from reports that the university will only allow persons that scored 250 and above to sit for the post-UME, even with 260, the university’s website will not allow you enter your details online as such you can’t sit for the test. If you can't sit for the test that means you cannot gain university admission this year because there is no second choice according to the UTME rules. UTME, which stands for Universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination presents only three choices to would-be students: university as first choice, polytechnic as second and college of education as third.

So you cannot make a second university choice, therefore if UNILORIN or UNILAG refuses you from registering, even when you meet their so called cut-off marks, you will still have to wait till next year, except if you decide to apply to a polytechnic or college of education. Come to think of it, what kind of country will subject her children to a national entrance examination today, and tomorrow the same children will apply to a particular university to write another test. Yet on top of this, will still be refused opportunity to write the so called test simply on account of where he or she comes from. You are simply raising a generation that will despise the nation. Or how can a nation deny her own children the opportunity to write a test on the account of which state they come from never mind, this child was born in the state and the parents live, work and pay tax in the state?

Left to me, JAMB has lost its importance. It can no longer function optimally. It has been enmeshed in too much politics and survival. The primary reason of setting up that body in the 1970s has been defeated. First, individual universities have curtailed JAMB’s relevance. Now the agency has become an empty shell; living on glory of the days of yore. JAMB should be disbanded and let us allow each university or a cluster of universities organise their own entry tests. Let JAMB merge with Nigerian Universities Commission, NUC to review curriculum and generally ensure standards are maintained. They can also help mark tests and render advisory roles but nothing to do with setting examination questions or placing candidates in schools. Let each university set its questions and admit candidates based on merit, period.

Therefore when a candidate applies to UNILORIN for example, but fails the process, that child must not hang his or her inability on ethnicity or state. It should be purely based on merit so that our universities which are supposed to be the bastion of knowledge should not now become the bastion of ignorance where all manners of irresponsibility are practised on the basis of a questionable national integration policy that is not integrating anybody. The country will integrate better when everyone is subjected to the same standards. More importantly, under no condition should Nigerian children grow up thinking that the country does not care or love them because of where they come from because gaining admission is every child’s way of becoming a Dangote or an Adenuga.

As we continue to evolve as a nation, it has reached such a time when we must ask ourselves hard questions about our recruitment process for university undergrads. We should at the same time examine why getting a PhD in Nigerian public universities has become a tug of war or yet again, man-knows-man?

#education #uppercrust