Scrap JAMB,UTME, retain NECO

News that Nigerian government is planning to cancel two of its major examinations-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and the National Examination Council is welcoming on one hand and calls for caution on the other.

Welcoming, because if implemented, it will curb the excesses of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board which has held candidates seeking university education by the jugular for a long time.

For years, JAMB has been the only authorised body conducting examination into the nation’s universities and polytechnics.

Every year, at least 1.5million candidates patronise JAMB and of this figure, less than 250,000 eventually secure admission. Yet, each of the 1.5 million candidates pays an average of N5, 000 [about $34] to buy a form.

Aside this, candidates are expected to pay all kinds of sundry charges including buying scratch cards for checking their results and scratch cards for printing their admission letters.

Yet, the exam process was at a stage so compromised that universities lost confidence in it and pushed for a post UTME, a move which though JAMB vigorously rejected, went through all the same.

Of course, this is also at an extra cost to candidates who have to buy forms from the respective universities of their choice and still pay for the Post UTME exam. So you find candidates going through tortuous processes to secure admission to either a university or polytechnic.

These are some of the reasons why plans to cancel UTME and leave universities to select their candidates on their own is a welcome development. However, I have reservations about the fact that JAMB as a body would still be in charge of clearing candidates for universities.  That seems to me that JAMB will still be milking its candidates dry but through other means.

According to reports, under the new arrangement, authorities of all tertiary institutions will now be at liberty to conduct their entrance examinations as they have been doing for post-UTME. JAMB will however serve as a clearing house.  Though JAMB will no longer conduct examinations, it will still be setting the standard alongside the schools authorities.

JAMB will be a clearing house like Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) in UK. If somebody gains admission into three universities and hold down space, immediately such person picks his first choice, JAMB’s system will automatically free the remaining two slots for other applicants.

I think government should scrap JAMB outright and allow candidates to apply to the universities directly. A few things are likely to happen if this is done.

One, each university is likely to put in place a process that will ensure it attracts the best of brains since universities will be rated by the quality of their products. Two, the current multiple costs of securing university admission will be scrapped and third, the torture candidates are forced to endure in a bid to compete for a limited space in available institutions will be lessened.

As for NECO, I think scrapping the body is taking us back to the old system where the West African Examination Council was the sole exam body in the country.  It is a known fact that monopoly stifles competition. Rather than encourage monopoly, government should create a conducive environment for competitive examination bodies and allow students to make a choice. Government should think of making NECO work better than scrapping it.

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University autonomy versus JAMB control

Prof. Ruquayat Rufa'i - Minister of Education

What’s the point in conducting post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination by universities all over Nigeria particularly private ones when candidates’ good performance in that exam does not really guarantee anything?  After all, what universities do with post UTME results is subject to the dictates of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board.

Why do universities make both parents and admission seekers go through unnecessary hardship when they know that JAMB has the final say on who is admitted to the university at the end of the day?

Parents and guardians of admission seekers spend extra money every year on air and road travels in their bid to take their children and wards to venues of their post UTME. Apart from the huge costs involved, some die in accidents.  Some parents and children were reportedly some of the victims of the last plane crash in the country.

This year again parents came from as far as Abuja to Lagos, Iwo and other parts of the country accompanying   their children who were writing their post UTME.

I can recall some of the reasons adduced for post UTME by universities a few years back. One of them is to ensure that universities admit quality students.  According to them, candidates offered admission by JAMB often ended up being below standard. The idea was to be able to sift candidates selected by JAMB to ensure they are up to standard,

While universities’ decision to sift their candidates might not be a bad idea, the universities were silent on what happens when they adjudge candidates to be good for admission and JAMB thinks otherwise. This has remained the crux of the matter.

As a mother whose daughter sought university admission this year, I had cause to take my child to different universities for her post-UTME.  At that time JAMB had not released its cut-off mark for university admission. The question parents kept on asking university authorities at the parents’ forums was what happened if their children did well in the university exams and failed to meet JAMB’s cut off mark. The universities had no answer.

It turned out that many candidates did well in the post UTME but scored below JAMB’s cut-off mark. For instance, Babcock University asked candidates whose names appeared on its admission list but failed to meet JAMB’s requirement not to bother paying the university’s acceptance fee.

If JAMB is still this relevant, why subject admission seekers to unnecessary stress?  Why does JAMB have to wait for weeks before releasing its cut-off marks?  If JAMB could release UTME results within one week of writing the exam, why should it wait for another six weeks before declaring its cut-off marks? Why allow parents to spend thousands of Naira to obtain admission forms to private universities or pay for different post-UTMEs, wasting money on needless trips before releasing the cut-off marks?

Though I don’t really subscribe to fixing a cut-off for admission, fixing 180 for university admission would have been okay by me if there are no question marks on either the integrity of JAMB as an exam body or on UTME as a whole.  There were reports of cheatings and other forms of exam malpractices in this exam which unfortunately cannot just be swept aside.

Whether JAMB likes it or not, the ministry of education would still have to work something out to resolve the issue of admission into Nigeria’s universities. With public universities over-stretched and multitudes of admission seekers out there, government needs to take a more pragmatic measure to solve the gigantic problem in the education sector.  Every year over one million people seek admission to higher institutions in Nigeria. The figure keeps increasing every year. But the entire system could only absorb 500,000 according to the minister of education, Prof. Ruqayyat Rufai.  A country in a situation like this needs to work on maximising its capacity to absorb as many students as possible.

But that is not happening now.  The situation now is that some universities, especially private universities, have spaces that are yet to be filled.   There are candidates that meet such universities’ admission criteria, but universities’ hands are tied by government regulation.

Let’s face it, while public universities usually have more than enough candidates to admit, thus always exceeding their carrying capacity, private universities will continue to have spaces because it costs money to study there.  Tuition in private universities range from N650, 000 to N2m per session depending on the course of study.  A large number of Nigerians cannot afford this.

Instead of piling up the list of admission seekers every year, I think government should allow those that can afford private university education and who are qualified by these universities’ standard to proceed to the university.  This will not only decongest the list of admission seekers, it will also reduce   capital flight.

There was a report that Nigerians spend N160bn annually in two Ghanaian universities.  Ironically, Ghana and other  countries admit the same candidates that are rejected in Nigeria because of unnecessary government regulations.  Universities in other parts of the world won’t need JAMB’s permission to admit candidates.  Instead of allowing parents to keep on taking their money out of the country to receive sometimes half-baked education, government could review its law.

Right now, some parents are in agony. For some of them, their children scored between 170 and 179. They have the money to pay in private universities and would have loved their children to remain in Nigeria for at least their first degree programmes, but they are being denied of that chance. This shouldn’t be.

After all, the autonomy of Nigerian universities   is claimed to be backed by law. If that is the case, institutions should be able to establish their own programmes of study recruit their own students and have some levels of control.   True autonomy connotes organisations having the freedom or freewill to set their own rules and regulations without interference and control from outside especially from government.

Agreed universities   must operate under the law of the land because autonomy doesn’t just give the right to do anything at any point in time, universities should still have the freedom to set and maintain their own academic standards just like the foreign universities do.

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Strike: ASUU Hails Legislators For Intervention, Looks Forward To Positive Outcome

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Wednesday hailed the Senate Committee on Education for its role in trying to resolve the face-off between the union and the Federal Government.

 

The National President of the union, Dr Nasir Fagge, made the commendation in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos.

ASUU had on July 1, embarked on an indefinite strike over the non-implementation of some issues contained in an agreement it entered into with the Federal government in 2009.

One week into the strike, the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqqayatu Rufai, appealed to the striking lecturers to reconsider their stand and go back to work, pending the resolution of issues involved.

The Senate Committee on Education also called ASUU for a meeting on Tuesday, towards a resolution of the issues--but it could not hold.

Fagge told NAN:``I sincerely want to appreciate the efforts of the National Assembly in its role at ensuring that it gets the executive arm of government to do what it is supposed to do on this issue.

Our meeting with the Senate Committee on Education that was slated for Tuesday July 9, could not hold because of some pressing issues that needed urgent attention.

The meeting has now been moved to Monday, July 15, when we are expected to deliberate on several issues that are related to the general development of the sector’’.

Fagge said he looked forward to the meeting with the legislators and hoped it would help in resolving the issues which led to the strike.

I am confident that the National Assembly will seize this opportunity in prevailing on the executive to do what they are supposed to do so.

``I hope that at the end of the deliberation, we would have cause to be happy and get ourselves back to work.

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