Thank you for scrapping post-UTME

The decision to scrap the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (post-UTME) is a great relief to Nigerian university admission seekers and we wholeheartedly commend it. Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu announced the decision at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) stakeholders meeting which recently held in Abuja to determine the cut-off mark for prospective […]

The decision to scrap the post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (post-UTME) is a great relief to Nigerian university admission seekers and we wholeheartedly commend it. Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu announced the decision at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) stakeholders meeting which recently held in Abuja to determine the cut-off mark for prospective tertiary institution students seeking admission in the 2016/2017 academic session.
The Minister said it was counter-productive for candidates to write post-UTME after having sat for and passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) organized by JAMB. The minister had asked representatives of universities and other tertiary institutions present at the stakeholders meeting whether or not they were satisfied with the conduct and results of UTME. They all said UTME as conducted by JAMB was satisfactory. The minister then said, “Since the universities are satisfied with what JAMB is doing, there is no basis for post-UTME.” He added that it was not appropriate for universities to coerce candidates to sit for post-UTME as a requisite condition for admission.
Interpreting the minister’s pronouncements later, the National Universities Commission (NUC) said universities were still at liberty to ‘screen’ students sent to them for admission by JAMB. NUC’s Public Relations Officer Ibrahim Yakassai said ‘screening’ in this context includes verification of candidates’ UTME slip, SSCE results and other sundry admission documents. We fear that some institutions could exploit NUC’s interpretation of the decision by escalating screening into a paper and pencil test. We therefore urge the Ministry of Education to issue a clear-cut statement to universities on the scrapping of post-UTME. The same statement should elaborate on what is meant by ‘screening’ that universities may wish to conduct.
Besides the scrapping of post-UTME, the minister also instructed JAMB to stop charging N1,000 per candidate for the scratch cards used in accessing UTME results online. At the close of the meeting, a cut-off mark of 180 was approved for the 2016/2017 admission into all institutions. These measures are very pleasant news to UTME candidates who, before the commencement of the stakeholders meeting, had gathered at the entrance of NUC headquarters, venue of the meeting, carrying placards in protest against post-UTME.
Scrapping of post-UTME was once predicted by JAMB’s Registrar/Chief Executive Officer Prof. Dibu Ojerinde when, in 2015, he assured that the Computer Based Test (CBT) mode of UTME was aimed, among others, at eradicating cheating and other forms of misconduct associated with public examinations. He predicted that CBT would gradually restore university authorities’ confidence in UTME. This has now come to pass.
It would be recalled that the introduction of post-UTME in 2004 was prompted when many candidates who made good results in UTME could not defend such. The integrity of UTME as conducted by JAMB came under severe criticisms from various stakeholders, particularly the universities. However, post-UTME overtime also came to suffer from the same challenges that necessitated its introduction. Post-UTME also became highly exploitative as many universities turned the exercise into a money spinner. Due to a crave for Internally Generated Revenue many universities invited large numbers of candidates, more than their respective admission capacities, to sit for post-UTME. A university with a capacity to admit 3,000 candidates, for instance, invited between up to 40,000 candidates to write post-UTME.
In addition, post-UTME became a duplication of effort as a candidate wrote two separate entrance examinations (UTME and post-UTME) for one admission exercise. Even worse was the psychological pressure that candidates were subjected to when invited to write post-UTME. Some candidates had to travel long distances to sit for the examination after having obtained the required cut-off point in UTME, exposing them to all the risks associated with travelling on Nigerian roads.
Now that post-UTME is gone, we advice JAMB to use technology to improve upon its conduct of UTME so that the challenges, especially those experienced during the 2016 UTME would be averted in subsequent examinations. There is still a lot of room for improvement in CBT mode of UTME.