Schools of Tamba []III]

In a reaction to my column of August 7, 2015, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, head of the information department of the Joint Matriculations and Admissions Board, has sought to clarify my erroneous impressions about the board’s new computer-based test policy. According to him, it will be foolhardy to jettison a policy just because certain individuals are […]

In a reaction to my column of August 7, 2015, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, head of the information department of the Joint Matriculations and Admissions Board, has sought to clarify my erroneous impressions about the board’s new computer-based test policy. According to him, it will be foolhardy to jettison a policy just because certain individuals are not intellectually prepared for it; perhaps forgetting or missing the point that the policy is really supposed to prepare them for it.
Or perhaps have we been crediting the new policy with something beyond what it promises or can deliver and then hiding behind it? Indeed, if ‘the primary objective is to eradicate malpractice and other unwholesome practice which include impersonation, incomplete result and other vices associated with Paper Pencil examination,’ as their spokesman said, it must be appreciated that perhaps the only malpractice CBT would be able to end is that of impersonation, which any biometric-based system would have more conveniently done; it would do nothing to stop any of the other malpractices that depended on invigilator-collusion such as spying on more brilliant student-neighbours, bringing prepared answers to examination questions, giving model answers for students to adapt, copy or adopt.
It would also not stop the advance release of question papers to schools or to paying students by staffers of JAMB for reasons of financial inducement, nepotism, statist-patriotism or, indeed, for any reason.
Nor would it have stopped the leakage of question papers by staffers of printing press or other pre-exam day custodians of the papers; or prevented other unauthorized persons having fore-knowledge of examination questions by way of breaching the security-packaging of question paper packets; or the act of receiving and giving assistance to candidates in the examination hall by persons within or outside it.
And if CBT was introduced as a result of what JAMB said was ‘dwindling confidence on [sic] public examinations in the country’ and ‘…of innovations by perpetrators of examination irregularities;’ the examination body should not present that introduction as an achievement: for, all these reasons that necessitated its introduction are the result of its own failure to conduct an examination that would be acceptable to the Nigerian public. If CBT is the solution, then what is the problem, and who caused it.
Meanwhile, with the world going ICT since the beginning of the present century, it is almost certain to say that a day will come when all testing, along perhaps with all instruction, will necessarily be online; but that day simply hasn’t come, not just here, but even in the developed world.
In the United States of America, for instance, a current observation has it that ‘dozens of admissions, placement, certification, and licensure testing programs are administered on computer, with the number growing each year. On the K–12 front, several states already conduct their annual accountability testing on computer, and many others are poised to join in. Hundreds of schools or districts also employ CBTs in a formative or diagnostic role in service of instruction.’
This is the land of Microsoft where the computer itself was invented and where its use is among the most widespread in the world. The decision to go 100% CBT is supported neither by computer penetration nor by its usage in Nigeria; and for many of the pupils sitting the examination, the period of the test will be the first time they will be seeing a computer. But even if writing the CBT is easier than operating a mobile phone, as JAMB spokesman said, there are many students due for the examination nationwide who have ever seen, much less operated, a mobile phone. And if ‘[e]xperience has even shown that most candidates, who have never seen a computer before, sat for the examination after a brief tutorial, asked questions where necessary and did very well with excellent results,’ then we must wonder when or whether such experience will ever come to Nigeria.
In 2015 a total of 1.5 million candidates enrolled for the examination nationwide; but due to challenges of getting computers and centres for this large number, the examination had to run on for about 15 days in three shifts every day, 6am-10am, 11am-2pm, 3pm-6pm.  And because of network problems, computers breakdown, generator overheat and breakdown, the exams were never held at the scheduled times. They had to extend very late into the night, sometimes up to midnight in a few cases. Certainly, this nation could certainly do better.
In all this, even discounting the physical difficulties, candidate preference is clear enough. In Adamawa State in 2013, for instance, only 322 candidates opted to write the exam using Computer-Based Test: the remaining 15,000-plus opted to write either Paper Pencil Test or Dual-Based Test. In the same year, for the North East as a whole, a total of 25 towns were used for the PPT—only four were used for CBT and three for DBT, with 183 exam centres for the PPT, only four for CBT and seven for DBT.
In 2015—both PPT and DBT were cancelled—only 17 towns were used for the whole of the North East and 33 centres of CBT exams with a marked reduction in students sitting for the test. But according to JAMB, ‘[t]hree years was good enough for stakeholders to prepare for the most celebrated policy in the education sector today.’ Considering the difficulty the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, has been having with its direct data capture machines and the card reader after several more years, this assertion can be laughable indeed.
With many states not paying teacher salaries, who will have been thinking of or worrying about the provision of ICT knowhow or computer infrastructure in schools? Who will have been thinking of the fate of pupils in rural schools who have never seen computers—children of the poor who cannot afford computer lessons in the cafes of urban centres? The result is an army of secondary school graduates, some very brilliant, from rural areas who cannot go to higher institutions of learning for no fault of theirs, who frustrated, unemployed, without appropriate skills, and feeling rejected by the nation, are poised to become security risk to it. It is a pity that JAMB has already put out its advertisements for the 2016 examination into tertiary institutions; and from its official tone, it will again go ahead with only CBT to the detriment of many in the society.
As seen, earlier in the year, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, administered a test that was  100% computer-based for candidates seeking admission into all tertiary Institutions—Federal, state and private universities, polytechnics and colleges of education—in the country, despite many genuine protests and undisguised challenges to the policy. Despite what JAMB now says, all students of who sat for the examination had to be computer literate, irrespective of their educational or family background; and computer-literate doesn’t meant having a Microsoft-approved certificate in software engineering.
In many states, there were only a limited number of computer-based centres. For instance, in Adamawa State there was just one centre for the entire student population in the state. In Kano State, which has the highest number of local governments in Nigeria, there were only two centres in Kano metropolis. Students who sat for the examination had to sit for it in turns facing great difficulties with accommodation, transportation and keeping their sanity in tow.
Without doubt, the issue of Computer Based Assessment is desirable and it is something should be encouraged, but not as if the world is ending tomorrow or in any way to the detriment of our youths. Indeed, besides the issue of examination malpractice, there are a host of other problems that could benefit from CBT; and these include the higher costs associated with the printing of examination materials, the possibility of a multiplicity of human error, longer time spent on the manual handling of examination materials and the consequent delay in the release of results.
But even in the land from where Nigeria copied the system, traditional Pencil and Paper Tests are conducted alongside the Computer Based Test for the benefit of such disadvantaged groups. It is to be feared that the 2015 admissions into tertiary institutions in Nigeria will be skewed in favour of some states. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine and reconsider the insistence of JAMB on forcing this policy on a nation that may not be fully ready for it. And especially since there is no one good reason for the haste with which it is going for it. The clarification given by JAMB in no way affects the conclusion of the column to which it responded through its information department, and which is reproduced below:
‘And, in any case, even if wish to popularise computer literacy in schools, this is not the way to go about it; and even if it is attempted in this fashion, it cannot possibly achieve a level where forcing students to take a fully computer-based test will make much sense. From where are we going to get all the computers needed to furnish our primary and secondary school classes? Where do we go to get the qualified teachers to impart the computer-literacy to students in a situation where even the teachers themselves are computer-literate?
‘In a nation where computer illiteracy is pervasive and endemic and skewed against a section of the country, the implementation of such a policy will make educational disparity in the country, which is already only too glaring, even more inequitable—and ultimately irreversible. And it is difficult not to believe that this is deliberate. But whatever happens, we should not hide behind technology to further marginalise a disadvantaged group. If we try to do so, in the end, the terrible cost of such deliberate deprival will ultimately be collectively paid by Nigerian society as a whole. An uneducated populace is a great anger to itself and even more so to others.’