To begin with, for us to get it right we must take “politics” off education. Politicization of education will not do anybody any good. Let us accept the fact that something is wrong somewhere!
Instead of embarking on our usual blame game, the best thing to do is to conduct an investigation in order to unravel the “cause” or “causes” of the mass failure of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) of this year organized by Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
What is the cause and or are the causes of mass failure in this year’s UTME? Could it be students inadequate preparation or unqualified teachers or inadequate infrastructures in schools or JAMB’s blockage of mal practices or JAMB’s inadequate time allotted to students or power or internet or computer failure and or all?
It is pertinent to note that, JAMB students are the same students who got nine “credits” and or nine “As” in their WAEC or NECO exams. What an irony! In my view, it is high time we introduce “technology” in the conduct of both WAEC and NECO in order to ascertain the true performances of our students.
It is a fact that, Post- UME screening was introduced in the Nigerian universities in 2005 due to lack of “confidence” in most of the students being churned out by JAMB then. Post-UME exams led to so many discoveries. There were cases of students with above 200 JAMB scores who got 20% or less in Post-UME exams.
From the inception of JAMB in 1978 to date, the examination’s body has gone through so many reforms all aims at sanitizing its examinations including the introduction of Type- system during the Paper and Pencil era. JAMB introduced partial Computer Based Test for the conduct of its exams in 2013 and 2014, by 2015, there was a complete transition from Paper Based Test to Computer Based Test (CTB).
In my observation, there is a reduction in the total number of candidates who scored above 200 marks as compared to the pre-CBT era. Candidates scored higher during the pre-CBT era more than the now CBT-era. This doesn’t in anyway suggest that CTB is perfect.
In fairness to JAMB, although no human exercise is perfect, the body has been day- in- day- out trying to improve its exams which led to the facing out of many CTB centres. JAMB must also look inwards in its attempt to sanitize the conduct of its examination.
May God bless Nigeria!
