Varsities turn post-UTME to revenue generation -JAMB

Written by Ayodele Adesanmi, Abuja

AT the Senate, on Wednesday, both the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the initiator of post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations  could not agree on the reason behind the special examination.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

The appearance of  the Registrar, JAMB,  Professor Dibu Ojerinde  and the initiator of post-UTME examination, former Minister of Education,  Professor Chinwe Obaji, before the  Senate Committee on Education was against the backdrop of fierce criticism of the  post-UTME by the public.

While Professor Ojerinde believed that  the conduct of the post-UTME was another matriculation examination and  contrary to the law establishing JAMB and creating additional financial burden on students, Professor Obaji noted that woeful performance in the  JAMB  necessitated the post-UTME.

Professor  Ojerinde, who  appeared before the Senate Committee on Education investigating the legality and propriety of the examination, informed  that the vice chancellors had turned the test into a revenue generating exercise, flouting the directives of the National Council on Education that no university should charge more than N1,000 for the screening exercise.

According to him: “The results of the post-UTME test are being used discriminatingly by different universities for different purposes, even as they invite candidates far more than their carrying capacities to boost their revenue from the exercise, even when they know that they will not admit them.”

Instead of the  test,  he asked the universities to screen  candidates and  ensure that the candidates qualified for admissions, believing that  universities had special  mechanisms for checking and flushing out those who entered the system through fraudulent means.

However, Professor Obaji, who recommended post-JAMB test in 2005 for admitting students to the nation’s tertiary institutions after it was discovered that results obtained by some JAMB candidates were fraudulent, informed that  “what we found out was that there was no correlation between the JAMB scores obtained by students and their performances in class after they had been admitted. It was obvious at the time that JAMB was messing up the admissions, with various kinds of lists.”

Obaji  noted that after conducting post-JAMB in 2005, it was observed that the best candidates were selected while the number of successful candidates were not up to the carrying capacities of the universities in the country.

To her  post-JAMB test was a credible means of screening candidates and filtering candidates in the face of the limited capacity for admissions to tertiary institutions.

She  admitted that the post-JAMB examination had also been abused, but suggested that support should be given to the vice chancellors to be able to implement the guidelines to the letter.

She alleged that even in the states, governors had taken over admissions in federal universities, making it difficult for people without connections to gain admissions.

Salim Bello, who was registrar when the test was introduced, said there were more malpractices in the universities than outside them.

SOURCE: Nigerian Tribune 27 October 2011.  http://tribune.com.ng