THE 2015 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME billed to commence on Monday, March 9 has been greeted with confusion and irregularities, as candidates struggle to access the website of JAMB to print examination slips without a success.
Complaints from candidates revealed that they were subjected to pay extra charges of N100 to check their examination centres at JAMB office. Just as they also alleged to have paid N700 to register for the exams earlier.
While JAMB stated that examination commences on 9th March, many candidates, however complained of being confused about the different examination dates in their slips.
On Monday, over 1.4 million students who registered for the 2015 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, will sit for the examination beginning 9th March.
JAMB-computer-based-testCandidates for the first time in the past three years, will compulsorily write the tertiary examinations via Computer-Based Test, CBT, without options of the Paper-Pencil Testing, PPT, or the Dual-Based Testing, DBT.
The examination which will commence on Monday, according to JAMB, will run for 10 days, leaving candidates to jostle for the 800,000 admission slots in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
Although candidates have been informed since 2013 that from 2015, those writing the examination will no longer have the paper-pencil or dual-based testing options but just computer-based testing, it seems many of the candidates are yet to come to the reality of this development.
Professor Dibu Ojerinde had in 2013 said: “The CBT is not compulsory, as every candidate would have the choice to choose either the PPT or the DBT but in 2015, it will be compulsory for all UTME candidates.”
The Registrar who gave reasons why it was inevitable to do away with the PPT and embrace the computer-based test stated that it will curb examination malpractice and enhance quick release of examination results.
He explained: “The idea of the CBT is that after 30 minutes of the examination and the candidate leaves the exam hall, a graphical result of the test will be sent to the candidate’s mobile phone number, while the specific scores will be released within the period of four days.”
At the début of this initiative in 2013, the examination body secured 77 centres across the country where the computer-based test held.
However, speaking with Vanguard Learning, its Public Relations Officer, Mr Fabian Benjamin said the centres have been increased to 400 across the nation.
Whereas in 2013, JAMB recorded just 4,000 registered candidates that showed interest in computer-based test, the remaining 1.7 million did either paper-pencil testing or dual-based testing, but today, the 1.4 million registered candidates will compulsorily sit for CBT.
Comparing the statistics of early years of UTME candidates’ registration, we discovered a steady decline since 2013 when the CBT was introduced.
In 2013, about 1.7 million people registered for UTME, in 2014, the number fell to 1.6 million, while about 1.4 million have registered for this year’s examination.
Performance of UTME candidates
The figure for the 2014 UTME shows a decrease of 129,139 when compared with last year’s total figure of 1,735,892 applicants.
Some candidates during Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations
There is a decrease this year compared to the last year which might not be unconnected with the introduction of CBT.
For instance, when it was PPT in 2013, a total of 1.7 million registered for the examination. What could have been responsible for the steady decline?
First thing that comes to mind is that our students have improved academically and gained admission to their desired institutions of higher learning. However, the performance of UTME candidates in the past three years have been abysmal.
In 2014, only 47 candidates scored 250 and above in the Paper-Pencil Test and Dual-Based Test. In 2013, 10 candidates scored 300 marks and above, while 127,017 candidates scored between 1-159 marks.
So, based on the above records, the decline in UTME registration cannot be as a result of academic improvement of students.
A school of thought posits that the increase in number of Nigerian universities has absorbed the backlog of unadmitted students.
Looking at the capacity of the nine universities added to the existing ones in 2013, you will discover that the total number of students admitted in those public universities are not up to 500,000. So, where have the students gone?
Another school of thought believes that private universities have since absorbed the backlog of UTME candidates to their schools.
The question begging for answer is: how many parents can afford the fees of these private universities? Many of the private universities in Nigeria collect between N400,000 and N1,000,000 as fees from each student depending on their course.
Where have the candidates who registered and failed in 2013 and 2014 gone to? Have they resorted to polytechnics and colleges of education? I am not sure they are there, because of the incessant ASUP strikes, the last which lasted almost a session.
Where exactly are these students, over 300,000 students are no where to be found.Could the introduction of CTB have discouraged UTME candidates from registering for the examinations?
Registering for the examinations
Speaking in this regard, Professor Anthony Kila said: “The fall in number of JAMB candidates in 2015 tell us that Nigerian population is growing, access to Education is increasing and tertiary institutions are also increasing. What those numbers tell us is that people are not having faith in the Nigerian system of education any more.
“The uniqueness of JAMB is that it is mainly for Nigerian education. So the fact that the number of candidates who registere for UTME is dwindling, shows that people are not patronising the Nigerian education system, they are looking elsewhere.
“The question to be asked is: Why are they looking elsewhere? They are looking elsewhere because quality is low, they are scared of strikes, also people managing the education system don’t have their children in the system.
As a result, there are no incentives for citizen to patronise the Nigerian education system. They are going elsewhere, abroad, neighbouring African countries, they are going to private universities.
“The only people left to go to Nigerian universities are those that have no choice. It is a very sad and sorry state of affairs for the country. We all need to look into it.”
Meanwhile, former Head of Department, Adekunle Ajasin University and Joseph Ayo Babalola University said: “Everyone is aware that the standard of our students sitting for JAMB has fallen drastically in terms of knowledge of the subjects examined by JAMB. We can’t place blame yet until we research into it.
However, one reason is that the government, to me, is not doing much in the educational sector, in terms of providing facilities and paying teachers’ salaries as at when due, so that there will be no strikes and no disturbances from the students themselves.
Because the disturbances and strikes cause inhibitions to learning and that creates a lot of problems for the institutions.
“That is why the statistics is coming down and it will keep coming down, unless the situation is addressed properly by federal government, state government, retired stakeholders, religious bodies that are stakeholders in the sector, and so on.
If we do not do this, I would not be surprised if next year it drops further.
“During our days, education was not taken for granted as it is these days. Many teachers are not even qualified to teach yet they are employed to teach Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Physics and English Language.
You can see the writing skill of the students has dropped drastically because they do not understand English language. Many of them cannot write a sentence correctly.
“All these things put together are responsible for the decline in the registration of students for JAMB. Instead of ascending, the statistics is descending and this is because the situation is very bad.
Admission to public universities
“However, there are some of them who do not have the money to pay for the exam, just as there are others who have gotten admission to public universities but cannot even afford to go there.
“Besides, We have seen some students who want to go to universities but their parents cannot afford to send them to public universities, even as low as the public universities charge.
“Private universities are also suffering from lack of registration because many of the universities that have just been approved may not have students. Many of the students are staying at home because they cannot pay the expensive school fees. There are a lot of problems and they are mingled together.”(Vanguard)
