As the public brouhaha over the uninspiring performance of candidates in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination continues to dissipate, there are major concerns that relevant stakeholders may not be doing enough to avert another academic disaster of such magnitude in future examinations.
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, the body responsible for conducting matriculation examination for entry into all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria, had, on April 29 2024, released the results of candidates who sat for its examination, but most of the results released were not impressive.
The Registrar of JAMB, Is-haq Oloyede, during a press conference he held when the results of the examination, which started on April 19 and ended on April 29, 2024, were released, inundated Nigerians with how candidates performed.
Oloyede said that 1,989,668 candidates registered for the examination, which is rated over 400.
The Professor of Islamic had also revealed that only 24 percent of the 1,842,464 million candidates whose results were released scored 200 and above, while the remaining 76 percent scored less than 200.
As expected, many Nigerians gave their two cents on the reasons why they believe candidates struggled to ace the 2024 UTME.
A school of thought among these Nigerians blamed the subpar performance of candidates not only on the economic hardship in the country but also on the mad rush to “japa,” that is, the quest to leave Nigeria for a foreign country in search of greener pastures.
They claimed that the economy had caused most students’ focus to be divided between making ends meet and doing very well in the UTME.
More disturbing, too, is the grim reality that some of these students are the breadwinners in their families and don’t have the ability to juggle the responsibilities of catering for their families and mastering their students.
In the same breath, most youths nowadays, including secondary school leavers, are nurturing ambitions to leave the country.
Those who want to leave believe that a degree from a Nigerian university will not fetch them a decent job abroad. This is why getting educated in Nigeria is, most times, the last thing on their bucket list.
Social media and failure on the part of a sizable number of parents to instill discipline in their children and wards have also been noted to contribute to the dismal outing of candidates in the UTME and Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination.
Indeed, most youths and secondary school students are enchanted with social media, which has seductively, albeit worryingly, become a potential goldmine where they can build their ambitious careers.
In Nigeria, the monetization of social media accounts, like the ones owned by individuals on YouTube and Instagram, has become an eye-catching venture.
Apart from this, new lines of work such as online retailing and content creating have become more appealing and fashionable to many young Nigerians.
Parents, on their own part, were also blamed for the downward spiral in academic excellence among candidates.
Some parents were criticized for paying whatever it costs to influence the scores of their children whose interests in studying for examinations have been quenched.
“Those who want to leave believe that a degree from a Nigerian university will not fetch them a decent job abroad. This is why getting educated in Nigeria is, most times, the last thing on their bucket list”
A whole lot of other parents were also blamed for not inculcating sound, moral discipline in their children.
In fact, a parent is currently cooling his heels in prison, according to Oloyede, for impersonating his child during the UTME.
The man and his child will be prosecuted in court.
As well as the aforementioned, the use of so-called special centres has refused to go away completely.
It is such special centres that a former aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, had written copiously about after he alleged that the educational success of a former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, was attributed to it.
For some backstory, Obi did not build any school in Anambra State throughout his two terms as Governor in the state. He, rather, chose to invest in and revamp existing schools then on the ground in the state.
Obi told anyone who cared to listen that his actions made Anambra State an educationally top-ranking state in the National Examinations Council SSCE.
Omokri, however, refuted Obi’s claim. He insisted that the existence of “examination malpractices centres” in Anambra gave the state an undeserved upper hand in the NECO examinations conducted there.
Furthermore, the self-proclaimed table shaker, Omokri, also disclosed that after Obi left office in March 2014, the state lost its pride of place in NECO examinations.
This, according to him, is because Obi’s successor, Willie Obiano, had closed down 486 special centres, or in Omokri’s words, malpractice centres, which he alleged had been established and were flourishing under Obi, immediately he (Obiano) came to power in Anambra in July 2014.
The question now on the lips of most concerned Nigerians is what next after the near disaster produced by candidates in the 2024 UTME?
A public affairs commentator, Benedict Njoku, said, “If nothing is done to address some of the fundamental issues people have raised about why the majority of students failed the last UTME, we will have another disastrous result in our hands next year.
“For instance, I think social media should be regulated so that young children who should be facing their studies will not be wasting their time there. I am among those who believe that social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, can blunt a student’s sharpness in class and make them lose focus.
“Phones should therefore be confiscated in schools, whether boarding or day schools. There should be systems put in place in schools so that students can call their parents using telephone facilities provided by the schools.
“This idea of students owning expensive phones, I do not subscribe to it.
“Then, there are many parents who do not qualify for raising children. Such parents will be a minus in the life of their children.
“Consider the man who shamelessly went into an examination hall to write UTME for his child, what do you call such a person? I wish becoming a parent was a matter we could regulate in this country.
“For that kind of man who was caught for impersonation, the appropriate laws should be visited upon him. And if such laws are not acting as enough deterrent for others, then it should be reviewed to make it tougher. We are talking about the future of our children here.
“Apart from all that I have just mentioned, our students need to unlearn and relearn what they think they know about education and working hard at their studies. Everybody must be involved in doing this, not just the government alone.”
Another stakeholder, Amaka Nnabuogor, told The Point, “To deal with this problem, the government should provide Nigerians, especially young Nigerians, with the right kind of environment to succeed and grow academically.
“We should not expect indigent students, who are the breadwinners in their family and with no financial backups, to excel in their studies. Yes, some do well eventually but most of the time, a greater percentage is always bound to fail their exams and you cannot really blame them.
“Let them reduce the price of fuel and the costs of living, and you will see these students blossoming. What about the textbooks? They should be made available by the government to students in the rural areas who cannot afford them. This is where state governments should come in.
“If the government can do this, it will, to a large extent, discourage japa. We need the best hands here to develop this country. We cannot be training our children for other countries to snatch them from us.
“And I agree with those who have said that special centres should be totally done away with. By doing this, we will be passing a message across to students that they must begin to rely on their ability to succeed academically.
“Finally, governors should learn to build schools. I like Obi but I don’t like that he did not build a single school in his state. The truth is that we need more schools. And as they build, let them as governments do everything possible to bring them up to standard.”
