- Warn body risks becoming irrelevant
Some university dons have criticised the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board over its failure to conduct the mock examinations for prospective candidates of the 2017 University Tertiary Matriculation Examination as scheduled on April 8.
Although JAMB eventually succeeded in organising the mock examination three weeks after, the dons argued that with the false start on April 8, JAMB’s failure to test-run its new innovation, the eight keys system, as scheduled, had cast some doubts on the ability of the board to conduct a hitch-free exercise this year.
But the Registrar and Chief Executive of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, recently raised the alarm that some powerful forces interested only in maintaining the status quo wanted to frustrate his efforts towards the forthcoming UTME.
Oloyede also vowed that JAMB would not return to the status quo, saying he would step on their toes no matter how big they could be.
The lecturers argued that the inability of the prospective students to be properly grounded in and familiarise themselves with the new eight keys system planned to for use by the candidates in writing this year’s UTME could boomerang.
They, therefore, warned that this development could have negative effects on the conduct of this year’s examination.
The university lecturers from institutions across the country, who spoke in separate interviews with our correspondent, said that the April 8 JAMB mock examination failed to hold as scheduled due to poor planning on the part of the board and lack of the right personnel to conduct it.
Although they also applauded JAMB for making efforts to be abreast of global digital development in its operations and conduct of its examinations, they decried the alleged lack of proper planning by the board, which they also blamed for its failed attempt to conduct the mock UTME.
The dons have, therefore, urged the board to revert to its former method of registration of prospective candidates for the UTME. They also warned that with the hitches, which hindered the conduct of the mock UTME, if JAMB insisted on applying its new method of writing the examination, it would be risking becoming irrelevant and being scrapped by the authorities.
Investigations have shown that prospective candidates in states like Ogun, Oyo and Borno States have fallen victims to fraudsters, while those at the grassroots are faced with challenges in the registration for the 2017 UTME due to the hitches being experienced with the new digitalised system.
Poor network in the zones have compounded the candidates’ ordeal. Commercial banks across the country are now daily besieged by prospective JAMB candidates seeking to register for this year’s UTME.
Only recently, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps arrested no fewer than five persons for allegedly deploying fake biometric capturing machines to register applicants in Oyo, Ogun and Borno states.
The suspects reportedly confessed to spending over N20million on the construction of a radio platform with which they hacked into JAMB’s registration portal.
The board’s spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, said that the fraudsters issued fake registration slips, which would be either edited or not found on the JAMB data base, to their unsuspecting victims. Benjamin said such candidates would end up not being cleared for the examination.
Educationists have, however, blamed JAMB for the development, arguing that the new digital platform created another avenue for fraudsters to make money, especially since the board had not been consistent while the students had become desperate to meet the deadline for registration.
They argued that JAMB’s introduction of a new system, when the former one used had not been well developed, was tantamount to experimenting at the expense of the prospective candidates and the country’s educational development.
On this note, they suggested that JAMB should go back to its former system or risk being scrapped as it had begun to lose credibility as a body conducting entry examinations into the country’s higher institutions of learning. Prof. Job Atteh of the Department of Agriculture, University of Ilorin, said, “I think what is being done is a case of experimentation. I think there was a way JAMB was being done and there was an attempt by the JAMB Registrar to regularise it, to make it easier and make it more efficient. But whatever you are trying for the first time, you will have to face the challenges. In the past, you were able to register anywhere, buy your scratch card and others, but now everything is being concentrated at restrictive locations, where you need to visit the centres and others. It is obvious that the people JAMB relied upon to perform effectively didn’t live up to expectations.
“In terms of development and ICT, the country is not fully developed and the challenges those at the local area will encounter will be different from those at the rural areas. The educational system in Nigeria is still evolving and it is unfortunate that after about 60 years of independence, we are still here. We have a centralised education system, but our country is one of those where the universities are not allowed to have their own admission policy. When you look at the policy, you will see that after secondary school, everything is always harmonised and it is becoming cumbersome. If it’s possible to decentralise a bit, it would be better.”
Speaking in the same vein, Professor Saleh Daudah of the Political Science Department, University of Abuja, noted, “The current registrar has failed to grow on the successes of his predecessors in office, Professor Ojerinde. The former registrar had laid down an easy procedure to register for JAMB and this man came with the same mentality of Nigerians, thinking that everything their successors did was wrong. Now, look at the mess he has brought.”
