JAMB and massive failure: Putting fact into perspective

To begin with, I’m so aghast seeing some highly respected intellectuals on this cyberspace attributing this massive failure in Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination to younger people’s inability to focus on reading and researching; wasting much of their time on Social Media, leaving other factors undisclosed. Firstly, it’s popularly known that UTME is designed to assess […]

To begin with, I’m so aghast seeing some highly respected intellectuals on this cyberspace attributing this massive failure in Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination to younger people’s inability to focus on reading and researching; wasting much of their time on Social Media, leaving other factors undisclosed.

Firstly, it’s popularly known that UTME is designed to assess candidates’ ability in problem-solving, critical thinking, knowledge of scientific concepts and principles, the significance of each subject taken by a candidate; and all the aforementioned components assessed are taught in schools.

If that’s the case, why don’t we attribute the massive failure to schools for their inability to groom candidates who can excel in problem-solving, critical thinking and knowledge of scientific concepts and principles?

Secondly, there are a lot of factors capable of determining the performance level of students in a particular subject or course of study. The most prominent factors are school factors, teacher’s qualification, instructional materials, availability of learning facilities, student’s characteristics, availability of teachers, pupils to teacher ratio, motivation, and gender among others. Why don’t we take a look at these factors, and thereby make amendments where necessary?

Thirdly, it’s pertinent to note that students aren’t alone in this. A situation where students are forced to be taught by teachers who are not qualified to teach; qualified teachers are outnumbered and overpowered by schools’ activities; absence of extracurricular activities –using materials that are not in line with syllabus; the number of students per teacher exceeds the standard of UNESCO & SDG and so on and so forth. What do you expect? There is more to this massive failure than meets the eye.

It’s high time we went back to the drawing board, put facts into perspective and started over. Time and tides wait for none. Saying social media are responsible for this failure is akin to making a flimsy excuse for such a conundrum. Some group of people or authorities –or both are responsible for this.

Ahmad Ganga wrote from Abuja