For some three months now, Miss Nnedinso Onah has not been her usual boisterous self. Her not being lively is not because she is under the weather. Illness is nowhere near her concerns. The worry of the 17-year-old is essentially because she has not been able to determine her university admission status this year.
“I cannot understand what is happening with regard to this year’s admission process. From March when I sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination till now, it has been a season of one complaint or another. From the challenge of the server at my examination centre, arbitrary award of marks to candidates, to the debate about the relevance of the post-UTME, it has been a feast of intrigues. As I speak, nobody is sure of the shape or the procedure for securing admission this year. The admission drama is still ongoing.
“My guardian is even more tired of the whole exercise. If universities are not calling for post-UTME, the Education Minister, Mr. Adamu Adamu, is demanding the scrapping of the exercise. In fact, we do not know who to believe any longer,” Onah, who wants to study Law at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, told our correspondent on Monday.
The experience of the youngster is just a tip of the iceberg in terms of the confusion that has greeted this year’s admission exercise. No fewer than 1.5 million candidates that sat for this year’s UTME, their parents as well as their guardians are uncertain about the shape and nature of securing admission to the country’s tertiary institutions. If the challenge is not about the Computer-Based Test and the protests accompanying the exercise, it would be the scrapping of the post-UTME.
Only on Monday, JAMB authorities denied that the point system (combination of UTME score with SSCE/WASCE results) on the board’s website was going to be the criterion for admission to tertiary institutions.
According to its Head, Media and Information, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, the material currently in circulation is a mere illustration and so does not represent the admission formula for this year.
The board, Benjamin noted, as in the past years, would continue to use merit, catchment area and educationally less-developed states to admit candidates to the nation’s tertiary institutions.
Hitherto, the minister of education at a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja recently also threw overboard the post-UTME, declaring that it was unnecessary for schools to subject candidates to another round of examination before admitting them.
The minister also cancelled the payment of post-UTME fees and ordered institutions that had collected such dues to refund them to the candidates. But barely two weeks after this directive, the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, through its Secretary-General, Prof. Michael Faborode, urged candidates to pay N2,500 for the post-UTME.
According to Faborode, stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Education, agreed on the sum as well as the continued screening of candidates after UTME.
Appraising the development, Prof. Segun Ajiboye of the University of Ibadan, said the contradictions arising from this year’s admissions were ridiculous.
The academic said, “The 2016/2017 admission process by JAMB has turned to a comedy of failure. It is very glaring that both JAMB and the Ministry of Education are confused. If not, all the contradictions coming from the Federal Government on the 2016/2017 admissions are ridiculous.
Ajiboye, who noted the Senate of each university had the power to regulate all academic matters, including admission, also faulted the point system of admission.
Describing it as a “time bomb”, the academic explained that the combination of UTME score with SSCE/WASCE results would result in more miracle centres for both the UTME and SSCE results.
He added, “What JAMB and the Ministry of Education are trying to do is to usurp the power of the university Senate. The issue at stake borders on the autonomy of universities. This is not acceptable.
“Universities all over the world struggle to recruit best students. Consequently, Nigerian universities should have unfettered power to recruit their students without unnecessary interference from the Ministry of Education, nay JAMB. In fact, JAMB should be scrapped while there is the need to create a unit in the ministry to coordinate admission submissions from universities.”
A non-governmental group, the Education Rights Campaign, agrees with the UI lecturer. The ERC, which spoke through its Coordinator, Taiwo Hassan, said admission seekers in the country were in a dilemma.
Hassan noted, “The confusion the Federal Government and its agencies have unwittingly introduced into the admission process this year is completely unacceptable. Now admission seekers are in a quandary as no one can say for sure what the procedures are anymore. JAMB’s denial of the point template, rather than being re-assuring, has only deepened the controversy. No one knows what is true or not anymore.”
Hassan, who also kicked against the N2,500 fee, said it was a subtle way the Federal Government was “covering up” its inadequate funding of the sector.
He explained, “What the government is trying to do is clear. The government recognises that universities and other academic institutions make up for their poor funding by exploiting admission seekers every year through the post-UTME. For a government that commits less than 10 per cent to education in this year’s budget, this is a source of extra revenue.
“Otherwise, there is no reason why a simple exercise of screening candidates’ documents should come at a price of N2, 500. I consider this a sanctioning of candidates’ exploitation and demand that the government must reverse this decision.
“Instead of trying to clean the rot in the sector by simply fiddling with policies that have failed to scratch beyond the surface, the government must take the bold step of attacking the root of the admission crisis by expanding the facilities of existing tertiary institutions while putting in place an emergency programme to establish more across the country.”
Also, an educationist, Mr. Sodunke Oladotun, blamed the admission crisis on what he called the “Nigerian factor.”
Oladotun, who said that he led the protest against the conduct of this year’s UTME in Lagos, noted that JAMB was only trying to be more powerful.
He said, “The problem is the driver of the system, this time, JAMB. The intention of the board is to reintroduce the eligibility and the redistribution system, which stakeholders kicked against last year. From what the board is doing so far, it will become so powerful that only candidates posted to universities will get admission. And if candidates do not fall into the admission list even with their high scores, JAMB will have no option but to redistribute them to other universities. I advise that Nigerians should watch as things unfold.”
(Punch)
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